Chuck vs The Woman Who Came In from the Cold
by Grayroc
Summary: The CIA approaches Chuck to work with them while he's at Stanford. He spurns their offer and his life changes.
1. Chapter 1

**Chuck vs The Woman Who Came In From the Cold**

A/N-Greetings. It has been a while since I put pen to paper. Michaelfmx has graciously agreed to be editor and sounding board for this story.

**"****Intelligence work has one moral law - it is justified by results." **

**― ****John le Carré, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold **

**Chapter 1**

**Santuario de Nossa Senhora da Pendeda, Portugal, July 24, 2009**

The tall young man trudged up the stone paved path. Each footfall stirred up dust along the trail carved out of the hilly countryside. The Pendeda-Geres National Park was a far tougher hike than he'd imagined or prepared for.

He cursed himself one more time for running out of water on his twenty-five kilometer hike. He checked his map, his destination was just up ahead.

The steeple of the remote church was now visible. Its granite walls shimmered in the rays of the late day sun.

It was like a beacon, calling the weary pilgrim….to come...to come. The Lady of the Snows awaits.

He laughed at the thought of snow with the temperature sitting at 29C. He finally reached the top of the stairs leading to the heavy, wooden front door. The calf muscle in his left leg spasmed once again. He was just about done hiking for the day.

He bent down and greedily drank from the public fountain outside the old 18th century church. He turned around to see where he'd come from. The long valley nestled between two towering granite mountains.

The exercise, the views and his exhaustion helped him forget.

The tiny street was almost empty except for two dogs lying in the shade and the old woman across the square. She walloped away at the two red carpets hanging from her balcony using an iron poker. She spared only a passing glance at the tall, brown-haired man as the dust from the carpets swirled around her.

He walked up wearily to the old oak door of the church. It swung open easily on well-oiled iron hinges.

The interior was darker and, thankfully, cooler. A welcome break from the heat.

The walls and ceiling were covered in a reddish brown wood, the pillars were made of granite. There was an ornate wooden diptych near the altar. The master craftsmen who'd lovingly labored on the interior of the church and the pillars had died more than three centuries ago. Their names long forgotten but their skills still evident.

He sat down, slowly lowered his head until his forehead was touching the wooden pew in front of him. He let out a long sigh. Life had not gone the way he'd planned. He thought about what the epithet inscribed on his grave stone might be. '_Betrayal was his constant companion'_

The Franciscan priest came out of his vestry, looking forward to a quiet evening. He was surprised to see the young man sitting in his church. July was a quiet month for pilgrims, odd.

The priest spoke Portuguese to the man, who had an aura of sadness surrounding him like a swarm of black flies.

The young man looked up and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, _I don't understand_. The priest switched to English. "Hello, welcome to our Lady of the Snows. Can I help you?"

"I'm not Catholic, so I don't think my confession to you would be exactly _kosher_." The old priest smiled at the young man's witticism. He gave a soft laugh and sat down beside him.

"No need for a confession. Besides, that happens on Friday. Anyone of any faith, at any time, is allowed to unburden his soul in this place."

He was tall, this sad looking man. The priest looked carefully at the stranger. His brown eyes conveyed an intelligence alongside the sadness that clung to him.

In the midst of his great sadness, the young man still held onto a shred of his old sense of humor. "If I started to unburdened my soul you'd miss your dinner and maybe even your breakfast."

The young man gave the priest the merest of smiles.

The priest shifted his position. "I've forgotten my manners, I'm Father Owen Ruelas."

He reached across and offered his hand. The priest had a strong grip, but the young man's grip was equal to the task. The priest had learned over the years that a hand shake could convey a wealth of meaning about the person. This tall young man had a strong, firm grip.

The young man smiled. "I'm Charles, and why is it your English is better than mine?"

"Ah… yes….an accident of birth I'm afraid. I'm the son of a Portuguese father and a Welsh mother. My father went over to hike in Wales and Scotland after he finished University. In the first two weeks of his trip, he met my mother in the Brecon Beacons. My father's exact words were. _'She was a dark eyed, Welsh beauty'. _He never left.

"I speak, English, Welsh, Latin and, of course, Portuguese. I'm afraid the rather polished English accent is from my four years at Oxford."

Charles liked the priest immediately. He was dying to ask the priest how he ended up here in this remote church. What was this man's story?

The silence stretched to well over a minute before Father Ruelas looked over at Charles and patted his stomach. "Charles, I hate to miss my dinner. It's been my experience that a good meal and some fine wine helps one's state of mind…wonderfully, especially when one wants to unburden themselves."

He stood up and smiled down at Charles. "Also, all that you share with me will be treated as if said under the seal of confession." The old man's face became serious. "I swear to God."

Charles looked up at him, still unsure. He'd never told anyone the whole story about his two encounters with the beautiful spy. He wondered if confiding in a stranger might be easier than to someone he knew.

Charles took a deep breath. "One condition, if….if I agree to unburden my soul to you. You have to tell me how you got from Oxford to this remote church."

Father Ruelas cocked his head to the right and considered Charles' condition.

The truth was this young man fascinated him. And it was obvious that the burden he'd been carrying was ever so slowly crushing him. "Yes...yes...I agree to tell you a little of my journey and why I'm here as the Priest in the remotest of charges."

**{}**

They walked out through the front door and then all the way around to the back of the church. A neat little apartment was attached to the church. Without any hesitation Father Ruelas pushed open the door and shouted out. "Maria, Maria…"

A woman in her fifties stuck her head out of the pantry beside the kitchen.

In quick fire Portuguese she interrogated the Priest about who this man was and what he was doing here. Charles picked up the meaning of the words by the woman's body language and the hard stares she sent his way.

Father Ruelas waved his hand at her and laughed. "Speak English, Maria, if you're going to insult my guest. "

Maria didn't back down for a moment. "Do you think me a miracle worker Father…that I can make an extra meal magically appear? Eh…" Her English was heavily accented, but Charles understood her.

"Maria, you always make more than I can eat...there'll be enough for my guest and me."

She stomped around the kitchen banging pots and pans.

Father Ruelas led Charles into his study. He closed the door. The study had one large window that had a spectacular view of the valley and river below.

He turned to Charles. "Don't worry about Maria, she doesn't like surprises. However, tomorrow you'll be the talk of the village and Maria will be the centre of attention."

Charles looked concerned.

The priest sighed as he sat down. "Don't worry, everything said between us in this room will be sub-rosa. Everything Maria tells the town folk will be her conjectures and what she makes up.

First came the fine, dark-red wine, then some olives, some crusty bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

The wine had done its duty, Charles was warmed by the wine and felt his sadness lessen.

Father Ruelas knew that Charles would never tell his story until he'd volunteered his.

"I loved being at Oxford, and I thought my life was headed for the foreign office, I wanted to be a diplomat. However, during my last year at Oxford, God tapped me on the shoulder. He grabbed onto me and wouldn't let me go."

"After getting my degree at Oxford, I went to St. John's Seminary. It's southwest of London, in Surrey.

Father Ruelas reached forward for the wine bottle and refilled Charles's glass.

"I graduated with distinction. Many doors were now open to me. I had worked like a Trojan and now my efforts were going to be rewarded."

Ruelas smiled at Charles. "I freely admit, after my ordination, I was a pain in the ass to the Bishop…..but finally, I was allowed to go to a parish in Lisbon."

Over the next twenty minutes, Father Ruelas concisely laid out his faith journey over the next seven years. Charles was still waiting to find out why this man wasn't a bishop or even a cardinal. The Priest sensed his anticipation.

"In my eighth year I was sent to Rome, I'd been identified as having great potential. At first, I was mesmerized by the city, by the Vatican. Ahhh, the wonders of the eternal city can still overwhelm a young idealistic man.

"I worked very hard. After seven months being at the Vatican, I knew what my destiny was. I wanted to be a 'Papal Nuncio."

Father Ruelas had to explain that a Nuncio was the permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See to a country. The Nuncio had the titular rank of an archbishop and possessed ambassador status and plenipotentiary powers.

Charles sensed they were close to the denouement of his story and leaned forward, not wanting to miss a single word of Father Ruelas' story.

"After another year, I thought that I had understood how the politics in the Vatican worked. I believed that I knew who was powerful and who wasn't in that small nation, beside the Tiber, that existed behind the Vatican walls."

The priest sighed. "I'd deluded myself, as it turned out, I was still a defenceless babe left in the woods, while the wolves sniffed all around me." A silence descended around them both. The priest was lost in his thoughts, but finally he continued his tale.

"As part of my training I had been assigned for four months to the comptroller's department."

Chuck obviously didn't understand what the hell a comptroller was. Ruelas patiently explained to him that it was the finance department. He then described his duties and responsibilities.

"In my third month I saw something was amiss. I challenged another fellow priest who I knew was 'cooking the books'".

He looked at Charles. "Do you know what I mean when I use that old phrase?"

Charles nodded. "Father, I have a penchant for old black and white movies, especially the film noir stuff. The other priest was stealing funds and trying to cover it up."

Owen Ruelas gave Chuck a half smile and continued. "It was a little more complicated than that. The priest's name was Father Carlos. I discovered he was paying the same invoices from a construction company two and sometimes three times. "

Ruelas stood up and started pacing. "Later on, I found out that the construction company, Lombardi Construction, was run by two of Father Carlos' uncles. Back then, eighteen years ago, there was still a lot of paper pushing.

"Audit techniques, good audit trails and the use of Artificial Intelligence software, to spot this type of malfeasance, was nonexistent.

"I was someone who followed the rules, so I reported what I'd seen to my immediate supervisor, a Monseigneur. I thought that my supervisor would deal with it at once. Nothing happened."

Owen shook his head. "That's not quite true. Two weeks later, my bosses' boss came to my office with one of the Swiss Guards and asked me to accompany him."

Ruelas grabbed his wine glass and drained it. "I was taken to a room without any windows. The Swiss Guard positioned himself outside the door. Inside the room was a Bishop Lombardi. "

He looked down at Charles. "Can you guess who the Bishop was?"

Charles guessed the connection. "The Bishop was related to the priest who was cooking the books."

Ruelas bent down and patted him on the shoulder. "Yes, correct. The evidence they presented to me showed that I had been the one authorizing payment for false invoices to another construction company doing work for the Vatican, called Giannotte Construction."

Charles now stood up. "Why go to all that trouble to point the finger at another construction company?"

Ruelas walked over to the window. It was dark outside, their meal would soon be ready.

"It was rather ingenious, they would get rid of me, the whistleblower; and they would get rid of a competitor to the Lombardi construction company. Two birds with one stone."

Charles walked over and stood beside the priest. "What happened?"

"I was given a choice, fight this out in an ecclesiastical court….and most likely lose….. or agree to be reassigned to a small almost forgotten place where I would bother nobody."

At that moment, there was a loud knock at the door.

Ruelas went over and opened the door. Maria was wiping her hands on her apron. In English, and looking at Charles, she snapped, "Well it appears that miracles can occur, I've managed to make one meal stretch into two….come and eat. I'm going home now, so I can make another dinner for my family."

**{}**

An hour later, Ruelas and Charles cleared the dishes, rinsed them off and put them into the sink. Once again Father Ruelas led Charles into his study.

He closed and locked the door. He went to a side cupboard and brought out a bottle of Port. Charles snuck a look at the label, _Quinta Do Noval Nacional Vintage 1985._

Ruelas poured two glasses of the delectable liquid, gave one to Charles and, with his hand, motioned for him to sit down.

"Charles, I've honored your condition. I've told you why I ended up here for the last eighteen years."

Charles took a sip of his port. He was no longer sure if he wanted to finally tell someone what had happened to him over the last two years. He thought he had the perfect way to avoid talking about his burden.

"Father Ruelas, I just noticed how late it's getting. I won't make it back to where….ahhh….I won't make it back to where I started out from. I probably should go and see if there is accommodation in the next village.

Ruelas smiled to himself. Over the years he'd dealt with hundreds of souls who did not want to speak about the secrets they kept buried deep within themselves. Secrets that at some point needed to come out to relieve the person's guilt or, sometimes, to make sense of what fate had done to them.

It was like lancing a boil, they must first go through the pain before there was relief and healing.

"Charles, the next village is ten kilometres away. I had Maria make up the bed in the other room, the one we reserve for those on a pilgrimage. And be in doubt, you are on a pilgrimage of your making. There is no need to worry about where you'll rest your head tonight. So….please… tell me what burdens you so."

The time for delay, the time for deflecting and the time for deferring was at an end for Charles.

Charles looked at the door, then the window. "Are you sure no one can hear us?"

Ruelas laughed. "The walls are two feet thick, the door is solid oak. Maria is upset with me, she has gone home to look after her family. We're alone….so…?"

"I'm not sure where to start…" Charles' resolve to keep his story to himself weakened.

Ruelas' was a patient man. "Just start….. talking…that always works..."

Charles held out his glass for some more Port. When the glass was half full, his resolve not to talk ….failed.

**{}**

**Chuck's Story**

The first thing I told Father Ruelas was that I liked to be called Chuck. He then asked me to call him Owen, so for that evening we dropped the honorific, 'Father'.

I tried to start my story when I first met her. But one digression followed the other. Owen was a great listener, he patiently followed my elliptical story with good grace.

I started my story by going back to 2003.

In January of 2003, I was sailing through my degree in computer sciences. One of the courses I'd taken was AI, artificial intelligence. I knew that this was going to be one of the shapers of the future. I loved writing algorithms which, you may or may not know, are the rocket fuel to make AI take off.

I developed two algorithms dealing with English grammar for AI software and then released them anonymously on an open source site. I wanted everyone to be able to use them, not just the billionaire corporations.

I wasn't looking to get rich and I wrote the algorithms just for the hell of it. Like I said, no need for the rich people just to get richer.

After I released the software, there was a lot of speculation and investigations into who'd written the code.

A month later, while walking across the campus at Stanford, I was approached by a guy called Bryce Larkin. We'd shared some classes and shared some laughs. Bryce had introduced me to Jill Roberts, who I instantly fell for, hard.

She was a beautiful brunette, a confident, intelligent woman, with a first class mind. I told Owen that within a year of knowing each other, Jill and I got engaged.

I didn't tell Owen about Jill and me fornicating like rabbits, that detail didn't seem really important.

Back to Bryce.

Bryce confronted me near my residence and asked if I was the one who'd put the two algorithms onto the open source site.

At first I lied and told him no, of course not, don't be ridiculous.

Ah, but Bryce was a very sharp person, a very persistent man. He and I had done some projects together. He knew the kind of code I was capable of writing. He was like a dog with a bone. Eventually, over the next four weeks, he wore me down….. I finally admitted to him that, yes, I wrote the code… but please don't tell anyone else. I thought he was my friend and that my secret was safe.

I figured out much later that Bryce must have been the one who tipped off the CIA. I wondered at the time what his connection was with the Agency.

**{}**

**Same Day**

**Lisbon****, Portugal, July 24, 2009**

The tall blonde woman walked along the avenue, noticing things that most people missed. The license plate of a car that was idling, while the driver smoked a cigarette. The clothes and deportment of the young couple, apparently in love, who were strolling on the other side of the street.

The blonde had a keen eye for anything that was out of place, didn't fit. Nothing caught her highly tuned spy senses.

She stopped often and sometimes turned and retraced her steps.

Her counter surveillance training made her take an extra twenty minutes to arrive at the safe house on Rua Falcao Trigoso. She was now confident that she hadn't been followed. The safe house was ideally located, a mere fourteen minute walk from the US Embassy.

This was her temporary home, her lair for the next five days. The mission was classic ISR, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission. The CIA spent billions on ISR, which encompassed satellites at the pricey end of the spectrum to an agent with a handheld camera at the other end. Someone who could get in close and would not be noticed.

Agent Sarah Walker was in Lisbon with a several different cameras to gather information about and photographs of Faidi Zuebidi. Faidi was suspected as being the chief bomb maker for the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade.

The CIA, Mossad and MI6 were planning an operation. They needed recent photographs of Faidi and anyone he might be meeting in Lisbon. Sarah was in charge of the watch team, one person from Mossad, one from the NSA and one from MI6. Everyone wanted a piece of this operation.

Sarah suspected that Faidi's days were numbered.

Her mission instructions were crystal clear, get information, don't let Faidi suspect that he's being followed or recorded and report.

Once safely inside her temporary home, she made herself an expresso and finally relaxed. Faidi was in his apartment, it looked like he would be there the rest of the night. Her watch team would call her if there was any change, but for now she had the night off.

She hated having time on her hands, time to think.

As she sipped her expresso, her right hand slipped down to her carryon bag. There was a hidden compartment that she opened. Her fingers unerringly found the small photograph. Sarah knew she shouldn't.

She hesitated for several heart beats. _'Leave it alone.' _

Her heart overruled her brain. She pulled the picture out.

The picture was well handled. It showed a tall man, with brown curly hair, smiling and hugging her. A kind man she'd spied on, a gentle man whose heart she'd stolen, along with other items. She'd used him and left him…she'd scared him. As always when the mission was completed she moved on.

Her finger delicately touched the photograph and she sighed like she'd done a hundred times before.

He was in Burbank, best to forget him.

The hand reached down and put the photograph back into its home.

**{}**

_A/N2- I'm not sure how long this story might be. I'm aiming for twelve chapters to tell the tale. As always, I will be governed by the interest level._


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N- **Thanks for the reviews and PMs. More of the backstory. Chuck's story and Sarah's story are in the first person. Sarah remembers her story in terms of 'mission days' and her spy log. Thanks to michaelfmx for editing the story.

**_"_****_Perhaps all fear is worse than reality, just as all hope is better than fulfilment." _**

**_― _****_Len Deighton, Berlin Game_**

_Previously from Chapter 1_

_Bryce confronted me near my residence and asked if I was the one who'd put the two algorithms onto the open source site. _

_At first I lied and told him no, of course not, don't be ridiculous. _

_Ah, but Bryce was a very sharp person, a very persistent man. He and I had done some projects together. He knew the kind of code I was capable of writing. He was like a dog with a bone. Eventually, over the next four weeks, he wore me down….. I finally told him that, yes, I wrote the code… but not to tell anyone else. I thought he was my friend._

_I figured out much later that Bryce must have been the one who tipped off the CIA. I wondered at the time what his connection was with the Agency._

**{}**

**Chapter 2**

**Santuario de Nossa Senhora da Pendeda, Portugal, July 24, 2009**

Father Owen Ruelas was a seasoned listener. He gave me lots of room to tell my story. However at the mention of Bryce and the CIA he interrupted me.

He asked me how on earth I was able to confirm that Bryce was working with the CIA. I assured him I was certain. He apologized for interrupting me.

**Chuck's Story, continues**

A week after telling Bryce my secret, I was approached by a gray-haired gentleman in a dark blue suit, white shirt, black tie and black shoes. The gentleman told me he worked for the government. He didn't exactly say which part of the government.

The invite for a cup of coffee was warmly extended in a rich baritone voice. I wanted to like the man, he had a fatherly air about him.

After we'd grabbed a coffee, he led me to a booth in the corner. He told me his name was David Williams. As the conversation went on, it was apparent he knew an awful lot about me.

About ten minutes into our 'accidental' meeting, he got to the point. He wanted me to work for them and help them with their own AI work.

"Who is them?" was my first question to Mr. Williams. He held my eyes for several seconds and finally volunteered. "The CIA."

I didn't like the CIA or the NSA. My feelings on this subject run very deep. Why? Fair question.

Two reasons.

One, because I'm the Piranha. The CIA and NSA have been trying to find out my real identity for the last three years. Did I tell Father Owen Ruelas I was the Piranha, while I was unburdening my soul to him? Of course not.

Thus far I've managed to stay two steps ahead of the CIA, NSA, FBI. Oh, and let's not forget MI6 and GCHQ. My explorations and hacking as the Piranha have been somewhat international. There are some excellent British hackers I've established strong links with.

The second and main reason is that my mother and father were both somehow involved with the government.

How do I know this?

Snippets of conversations, I overheard, between my mother and father. Most adults, including parents who should know better, don't think a six-year old boy really understands or remembers what they hear when listening to adults. Boy are they wrong. I remembered a lot of what my mom and dad talked about in hushed tones. It was when I was twelve years old that I started to sift through my childhood memories, as I tried to make sense of what was happening in my life.

Can I prove my parents worked for the government? No.

But when your mom and dad leave you and your sister….I mean walk out the door and don't ever return…. What the hell is that about?

My mom left when I was nine years old. It almost destroyed my father, it almost broke our family. Thank God for my sister Ellie. She's my Rock of Gibraltar. Ellie, more than my dad, kept us together as a family.

Anyways, soon after my mom left, I saw my father cringe a little whenever the CIA's name popped up on the nightly news.

Three years later, my dad left us after he received two phone calls that greatly upset him. I clearly remember those phone calls put the fear of God into him.

He never told Ellie and me who he was talking to, but I had my suspicions. He was a research scientist working for DARPA. How do I know this?

There were letters in his office from some man, called Dr. Bainbridge, at the 'Software and Intelligent Systems Technology Office'.

Five years after he left, I connected the dots between the 'Software and Intelligent Systems Technology Office', Dr. Bainbridge and DARPA.

The connection between DARPA and the CIA was harder to make, but I believed it existed even though I had no real proof.

Okay, so maybe I was a tad paranoid.

The long and short was that the CIA couldn't pay me to work for them.

The irony was that the CIA was willing to pay me a lot of money. It didn't matter, I still said no.

The man in the blue suit, white shirt and blue tie took a deep breath and shook his head when I said, 'No thank you'.

He looked at me with severe gray-blue eyes.

"Listen son."

Why the hell do older men, who aren't your father, call you son?

"The CIA needs you, your country needs you. It's your duty to help us keep ahead of the Chinese, the Russians and the Iranians. We need the best brains helping us to win this battle." He paused to see if I was paying full attention to him.

His countenance bore down on me. "Son, make no mistake, this is a battle we're fighting, just like in a shooting war. We can't afford to lose the AI battle.

I thanked him and respectfully said no once again.

The charm offensive from this gentleman ended abruptly. "Listen son. I've offered you the carrot, take it because what comes next is the stick. You aren't going to like the stick, so don't make us use it."

He gave me a card with his phone number and told me to call him when I changed my mind.

I didn't change my mind and I threw his business card away.

Well, the stick turned out to be every bit as unpleasant as the man in the blue suit promised ….and more.

Bryce planted evidence that I had been cheating on an exam. He then took 'said' evidence directly to the Provost.

Seriously, how could the people at Stanford believe that bastard Bryce over me? All they had to do was look at my grades and my courses over the last three and half years. I didn't need to cheat.

Stanford was now considering my case and, if found guilty, what punishment I would receive. The Judicial Affairs and Student Conduct Committee were meeting the next day.

That same night there was a knock on my door. When I opened the door, no one was there. There was, however, a blank envelope laying on the floor with my name on it. The piece of paper inside read;

_Charles,_

_Last chance to work with us. We can make this whole unfortunate cheating incident disappear. You'll graduate, Summa Cum Laude_,_ and you can come and work for us. Your starting salary will be $75,000 with a $10,000 signing bonus. You have ten hours to decide. Make the right choice._

I have to admit to you that when I saw the money they were willing to pay me and the signing bonus…..well… I was tempted to say yes. I spent a restless night, tossing and turning as my resolve not to work for the CIA weakened. The first smudges of dawn greeted me as I stared out of my bedroom window.

As the sun started to rise, I made my mind up. I didn't want to work for the organization that had such a big hand in wrecking my family.

My naïve young mind didn't believe that the government cared that much about me to go through with their threat, they had to be bluffing.

Nor did I believe the flimsy evidence Bryce had presented would stand up to careful scrutiny by reasonable and principled academics. Stanford would surely find me not guilty.

Life is a stern tutor for those who are naive. Stanford did find me guilty.

They believed the flimsy evidence presented by Bryce. I was expelled, no degree and told to go home.

Less than twenty-four hours after my expulsion, my beautiful fiancé, Jill, ended our engagement.

Later on I found out from some friends at Stanford that Bryce bedded Jill shortly thereafter. I'm sure she resisted his advances for several minutes…geeeez.

Bryce notched his belt and moved on. I didn't share that tidbit with Owen, not really relevant.

**{}**

At this point in my story, Owen stood up and suggested we take a break. "Let's go look in the fridge for some cheese and biscuits to keep our energy up." He brewed up two expressos in the kitchen, I think he sensed this was going to be a late night.

When I resumed my sad tale back in the study, I glossed over my three and a half years of depression and all that entailed. Moving back to live with my sister, working at the Buy More, and let's not forget three disastrous dates with friends of Ellie.

I didn't want to depress Owen and myself any further, so I quickly advanced the story timeline to 2007.

In March of 2007, I was starting to emerge from my lost years. Imagine a gopher emerging from its hole after a long and brutal winter.

I finally raised my head and looked around me.

What I saw wasn't pretty.

I knew something had to change. I was still living with my patient and understanding sister and her fiancé. I was still working at the Buy More for $12 an hour, still supporting Big Mike so he could keep his job.

A word about Captain Awesome.

Devon, to his great credit, never judged me harshly. He never assumed a 'holier than thou' attitude. He was 'awesome' and he always tried to encourage me. Devon the jock often invited me to exercise with him, which I studiously avoided, but was grateful to him nonetheless for trying.

I was feeling so good that I felt a surge of mischievous creativity.

I came up with two excellent algorithms dealing with game theory. It took me three months of focused work to perfect the algorithms.

I lost Owen at that point in my story. I think it was when I started to describe 'the Nash equilibrium' to him. He shook his head and with a wave of his hand indicated I should skip to the next part.

Like I said Owen was a patient man but I could see he was relieved for my story to get to the part where I met her.

Owen's eyes widened with interest when I told him about my first meeting with Sarah.

**{}**

**Same Evening**

**Lisbon, Portugal, July 24, 2009**

**24 Rua Falcao Trigoso**

Sarah slipped into bed thinking about the next day. Six hours sleep, that's what she was hoping to get, a luxury on this type of mission.

If all went well, her team would acquire deatiled photographs of Faidi Zuebidi.

The Mossad had recent Intel that tomorrow Faidi would be meeting, here in Lisbon, with a suspected cell leader who was based in Frankfurt. Sarah racked her brain thinking about how she could record the actual meeting when, as of yet, she had no clue where it was going to take place.

Her instructions were to get photographs of the cell leader.

She was finally able to stop the wheels turning in her mind about the next day. Sleep claimed her just at the point that she figured out how to record tomorrow's meeting.

**{} **

The dream was vivid, too real, it woke her up. Sarah sat up suddenly and shook the remnants of the dream away.

She reached over to the side table and grabbed her phone, it was 5am. There were no messages from the watch team. All was well. She'd join the team in two hours.

She lay her head back down on the pillow. The room was dark but there would be no more sleep, her eyes were wide open... staring at nothing.

The vivid dream had been about Chuck, sitting beside her on the beach. In the dream, she felt his presence warm her.

The memories spilled over, under and around her internal barriers. Barriers that she'd erected to allow her to function as an agent.

She finally gave in …. the past crowded out the present.

**Sarah's Story**

**July 29, 2007**

**Burbank, Maison23**

**Day 1**

It was a fluke that I ever met Charles Irving Bartowski. This really wasn't the type of mission I usually got involved in.

I'd finished a mission in Colombia and had spent two relaxing days with Carina, catching up and decompressing. Graham knew I was in Los Angeles and called me. He figured this would be a short in and out mission.

The Director's orders were get close to the mark, find out what he might or might not be doing in the area of Artificial Intelligence.

Apparently, a month ago, someone anonymously released AI code on an open source site.

The code, or algorithms, had something to do with Game Theory. The word from the CIA technical people was, '_This stuff is gold. Sadly, now everybody has it and there's no advantage to the US_.'

The mark did something similar, four years ago, giving away free programs and algorithms. According to his file we tried to recruit him while he was still at Stanford. Graham informed me that the ham-fisted agent sent to recruit him attempted to leverage him to join us…..the mark flatly refused.

The recruitment effort by the older agent overstepped the mark and was a failure.

My mark, Charles I. Bartowski, is one of five suspects for this latest release of AI algorithms.

My mission brief is succinct:

_Get close enough to the mark to determine if he was the one who recently dumped the AI code on the open source site. Find out what other work on AI he may be involved with, also find out if he's involved with other hackers. If he is 'our' guy, obtain a copy of any AI code he has by whatever means necessary. _

The mark and I finally met today. I introduced myself as Sarah Wells. Another name, another identity, another city. Another set of lies.

First contact was a piece of cake.

Decent looking guy.

The analyst who supports me when I'm in the field informed me that the mark has low self-esteem issues, still carries a torch for his ex-fiancé. Really, who carries a torch for someone for four long years?

You can also add that he's nervous around good looking women. Meeting me rattled him he was flustered.

He fixed my cell phone quickly, too quickly. Before I could continue, he switched his attention to another customer, a befuddled father and his young ballerina daughter. The father didn't understand digital cameras. The mark helped them out sort out the mess. He's a rescuer, he likes to help people, fix things.

He's a nice guy.

Nice guys get eaten for lunch in my world.

I left my cell number with his impish friend Morgan and told him to give it to the mark.

**Day 5**

The mark didn't call me back!

I initiated a second meeting and gentled him into getting together for a date that evening.

The date went well from a mission perspective. I lied my ass off, as usual.

The mark opened up to me like a flower facing the sun. Sometimes working marks is just too easy. My dad and the CIA trained me well.

He told me about getting kicked out of Stanford, Jill Roberts and his family. He had a sister called Ellie, she had a fiancé Captain Awesome and his best friend was Morgan. He then talked about Bryce Larkin in less than glowing terms.

When he mentioned Bryce Larkin, I managed not to fall off my chair. However, the wine I was sipping went down the wrong way and I coughed. I managed to quickly recover from my, less than professional, lapse.

At the end of the evening we exchanged emails and cell numbers. He dropped me off at my hotel and I gave him a peck on the cheek. He blushed.

I was correct in my plan about how to deal with the mark.

Go slow, use the nice girl persona, appear to be really kind, and be an empathetic person. I can do that.

A note of caution. The mark is highly intelligent. He's well versed in all kinds of trivia about music, science fiction, fantasy and comic books. Best not to try and fake it in these areas.

I must guard against underestimating him.

There's something about this man that slightly unnerves me. I wished Director Graham had chosen someone else for this mission

That evening I received a phone call from Director Graham, to go back to Colombia, at once.

**Day 26**

I returned to Burbank twenty-one days.

I'd been in Colombia for the last three weeks with Bryce, once again as his cover wife, Mrs. Anderson. Bryce asked me what I was doing in Burbank. I told him it was need to know. He was curious but let the matter slide.

We accomplished our mission, stopped in Cabo for four days of sex, sand and relaxation. Now I'm back here to complete my mission with the mark.

I called him and got a lukewarm reception.

The mark was upset with me. He'd sent me four texts and four emails with absolutely no response.

I had to sooth his hurt feelings. I told him part of the detailed legend that the CIA had prepared for me.

_I'm a gifted linguist who advises US corporations doing business in South America and Europe. I travel a lot. The work is sensitive and I'm governed by NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) with large financial penalties attached if I breech that confidence_.

The mark is a trusting guy, plus I turned on the charm.

He gradually warmed up during the phone call. We'll get together at his place. Meet the family.

Great, just what I need. Kill me now.

I hate assignments where the mark is a nice guy. It doesn't happen often in my world, most of the marks I've dealt with get exactly what they deserve.

This poor guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was a means to an end. I was actually pulling for the mark and hoping that I didn't find any incriminating evidence.

**Day 27**

The evening with the mark's family was much, much harder than you could possibly imagine.

First off, they're all smart as hell, which meant I had to bring my A-game to the evening.

His sister, Ellie, and Captain Awesome, her fiancé, are doctors. She's a neurologist and he's a thoracic-cardio surgeon, brains, beauty and brawn.

Ellie was friendly and obviously dying to find out who the new woman in her brother's life was. Sometimes I wondered if she could see past my false façade. She didn't, but I didn't let my guard down for a second.

I used all my skills to make sure she didn't detect any falseness or jarring irregularities in who I claimed to be. Like I said, hard work.

Looking back I regret bringing the Porsche out to Burbank….Devon had a dozen questions about the car. Asking me technical questions about horsepower, torque, zero to sixty in how many seconds. How much did it cost to change the oil or replace the tires? No one actually asked me how much the car cost. They were too polite to ask.

But they were all wondering what I did for a living in order to drive a Porsche. So, I told them the same cover story I'd told the mark.

I should've had the agency supply me with a beat up Corolla.

Sometimes, a piece of the truth mixed with lies is the way to go. I told Devon that I have a cousin in the DEA who helped me get the Porsche through a government auction at a much reduced price.

Getting the Porsche in a government auction was true.

The lies that are so disturbingly easy for me to spout were that Carina Miller is my cousin and she works in the accounting department at the DEA. Imagine Carina working in an accounting department, chaos would reign.

At the end of the evening, Ellie strongly hinted we should have a girl's outing together. I did everything in my power to be receptive to the idea and not commit to a specific time or date.

That's all I needed, to give Ellie Bartowski a whole afternoon or an evening to figure out that I'm not who I'm pretending to be.

**{}**

**A/N2- **A word about publishing new chapters. I'm trying to release a chapter a week. Be advised I'm a slow but steady writer. I will complete this story.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N- **Thank you for reviews and PMs. Merci michaelfmx for editing. This story will not be a replay of canon. Agent Sarah Walker, in this story didn't fall in love with Chuck at first sight.

A/N2- I've chosen to go with a laptop and not a desk top computer in Chuck's room.

_We have to live without sympathy, don't we? That's impossible of course. We act it to one another, all this hardness; but we aren't like that really, I mean...one can't be out in the cold all the time; one has to come in from the cold...d'you see what I mean?"_

_― __John le Carré, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold_

**Chapter 3**

**Santuario de Nossa Senhora da Pendeda, Portugal, July 24, 2009, Late Evening**

Father Owen Ruelas waited for a pause as Chuck shared his story. The moment came and he waved his hand for a break and stood up. "We need to stretch our legs".

It was obvious that Chuck still had a lot of ground to cover. It was also clear that at the heart of everything for this young man was this enigmatic woman, Sarah.

Chuck followed Owen into a narrow hallway, where two brown habits with hoods were hung on wooden pegs.

"It gets cool in the evening this high up in the mountains. At night there's usually a strong breeze that comes down from the hills and rushes down the valley towards the sea. This will keep us comfortable."

Owen helped Chuck put on the coarsened wool habit and tied the rope cord around his waist. "Put the hood up if you wish."

When they reached the end of the balcony and looked down. There was a long drop of two hundred feet. The sky was crowded with stars. Chuck saw the actual Milky Way for the very first time. "You feel so small and insignificant."

A smile appeared on Chuck's face. "Owen have you ever read the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy?"

It was Owen's turn to laugh. "I take it you're referring to the Total Perspective Vortex machine. Where it shows an individual the Infinity of Creation and drives them mad."

Chuck nodded. "Yes, unless you're named Beeblebrox."

Owen glanced at Chuck, with the habit wrapped around him, and laughed. "Chuck, if I didn't know any better, I'd think you were a Franciscan friar in the making."

Chuck smiled at the very idea. "Owen, I'm still struggling with the whole idea of….well…you know God …a person having a soul….let's say I'm kind of on the fence."

Owen turned towards Chuck. "C.S. Lewis, I think, said, '_You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body."_

Owen lightly touched Chuck's arm. "Don't worry Chuck, I'll not proselytize you….at least not tonight."

For several minutes they stood on the balcony, lost in their own thoughts. Owen broke the silence.

"Chuck, why are you here?"

Chuck was puzzled by the question. "Owen, is that a trick existential question? I thought you weren't going to try to recruit me for Team God."

Owen laughed out loud. "Chuck, I meant what are you doing here….in Portugal."

Chuck then started to laugh. "My sister and her fiancé are attending a medical conference in Lisbon. Devon's dad, Woody, had over 100,000 air miles on his platinum Amex card. They used the air miles to get me a ticket.

"This is my first vacation in a long time. I really wanted to walk the Camino de Santiago, but didn't have the time to walk the whole eight hundred kilometres. So this was my second choice."

Owen smiled. "In my opinion, you've come to the most beautiful country in Europe…..the equal of my home in Wales."

The two men stood side by side, the only sound was the wind moving through the tree branches.

"Chuck, I've listened closely to your story. I wonder if your continued…..thoughts about Sarah…"

Chuck interrupted Owen. "I think you meant to say my obsession with Sarah..…you're just being polite."

Owen nodded. "As you've shared with me, it took you many years to get over your failed relationship with the woman at Stanford….Jill Roberts."

Chuck then touched Owen's shoulder. "Let's go back inside, once you've heard my whole story, maybe you and I will finally make some sort of sense about the past two years."

**{}**

**Sarah's Story, continues**

**Burbank, Maison23**

**2007**

**Day 29**

I was finding it increasingly difficult to refer to Chuck as the 'mark' in my spy log. I struggled with why that was?

Terms like 'mark' and 'asset' allow an agent to remain aloof. I was taught that it's important to objectify the individual that I'm dealing with. My father, bless his twisted heart, taught me that all marks are sheep that need to be fleeced.

My training at the Farm taught me not to become compromised. I tried to hurry the mission along and get out of Burbank. I believed I wasn't compromised.

**Day 30**

In order to speed the mission along, I contacted one of the up and coming stars of the CIA Cyber Division, Brett Cousins. He's twenty-five years old, but he looks like he's nineteen. I've worked with Brett several times and met him twice at Langley.

He reminds me of Chuck, but not in a physical sense. Brett is five foot nothing while Chuck is six foot three. The similarities are rather in terms of both of them being quick witted and very smart.

When it comes to computers, I think of myself as above average for a field agent. However, compared to Brett I'm a novice.

The CIA sent me a thumb drive with software to get into Chuck's computer.

I confirmed that Ellie and Devon were in Sacramento for two days, visiting Devon's parents. Chuck had the noon to closing shift, at the Buy More.

I had plenty of time to get into his laptop without him knowing I had even been in his room.

**{}**

It was child's play for me to get in through Chuck's bedroom window. The lock, if you can even call it that, was a joke.

Being invited into a person's bedroom is an early sign of trust. The bedroom is a special place, a fortress for some, an oasis for others.

Breaking into a person's bedroom was a violation of their space. It was a betrayal, a breach of trust. I knew that…. but damn it…..this was my job.

I looked around the room as I'd been trained to do. Look to see, memorize in order to recall the details.

For the briefest of seconds, I had the urge to turn around and leave. The feeling passed quickly and my training kicked in.

I freely admit my first judgements were harsh.

Chuck was a twenty-six year old man, living with his sister. He was barely managing to make ends meet. On one wall I saw a Tron poster. What was that about? There were vinyl records, and a record player. Near his laptop was an Xbox gaming system.

This could easily have been the room of a seventeen year old boy. A pair of converses were in the corner. Two comic books were on the side table to the left of his bed.

He was man-boy, he was a geek. Or, as he preferred to call himself, a Nerd.

He was the antithesis of the rich, sophisticated, handsome men I'd met as Agent Sarah Walker. Chuck wasn't at all like those men. A quick look in his closet told me he didn't wear Armani or anything close. He could only speak one language.

It dawned on me, as I stood in the middle of Chuck's bedroom that in my world there was a whole conga line of wealthy, powerful, narcissistic, corrupt, cruel and dangerous men. These were the types of men I'd had to deal with over the last eight years as an agent.

To a select few of those men I'd been the Angel of Death.

So, yes it was true…Chuck wasn't at all like those men. He was a breath of fresh air compared to those stale and vapid men.

I'd missed it at first….the room had plenty of character to match the man. There was more to Chuck than my initial harsh impressions.

On a small corkboard attached to the wall, I saw two gift certificates for $100 to ThinkGeek magazine. Chuck had apparently won the 2005 and 2006 competitions of something titled Underhanded 'C'.

It was many months later that I found out Underhanded C was a prestigious programming contest.

By the carpet beside his bed, I saw a pile of books. The spines of the books revealed an eclectic mind. I can still recall a few of the titles. Collected poems by Robert Frost, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, The Stranger by Camus and the Old Man's War.

I took my time exploring Chuck's space before going over to his computer.

I called Brett as I prepared to insert the thumb drive. He was talking to me through my ear bud as I pressed the on button of the laptop.

Usually at this point, I sit back and let the tech guys take over. Normally, it takes them ten to thirty minutes to gain access and copy the files.

The shit hit the fan quickly.

Brett said, 'Shit and f…. ' then he exclaimed, 'Disconnect the thumb drive….NOW!'

The Monitor went a little nuts and started flashing, the speakers hooked into the laptop made a hell of a racquet. Klaxon sounds, a woman's piercing scream, the world sounded like it was ending.

Brett quickly explained to me that this laptop was protected from anyone trying to break in. No shit!

The laptop made sounds that would wake up the dead. Thank God, no one was in the house.

Brett told me to disconnect the laptop and then take the battery out. Finally, after the battery was removed, there was peace and quiet.

Brett then said I needed to steal the laptop and send it to him.

My instinctive and unspoken answer was, _'NO'. _

The answer that came out of my mouth was automatic. "Yes, of course." Poor Chuck.

I made it look like a burglary, a snatch and grab affair. I messed up his room but tried not to break anything. To ensure the police would call it a burglary, I grabbed some other items. I left the window to his bedroom wide open.

The stolen laptop was taken to LAX by a CIA courier.

Brett Cousins received the laptop that evening.

{}

**Day 31**

Chuck called me the next day and told me the bad news.

There had been a break in at Ellie's condominium. He told me hurriedly that the thieving bastard had concentrated on his room.

His room had been trashed, the thief had taken his laptop, his TV and one of his special collector comic books. When he shared this with me I could feel the acid burning in my stomach. I closed my eyes, praying that the mission would soon be over.

I forced myself to ask the questions and be sympathetic. "I'm so sorry Chuck, I know the TV and the laptop were really important to you…. Was there…..I mean…. any important stuff on the laptop?"

His answer floored me. "I can get a replacement TV from the Buy More way below cost. The Laptop was insured, that's not a problem. The number 1 Fantastic Four comic book is an irreplaceable item."

A comic book was valuable? I took it because it was in a specially sealed file, under the bed. I asked the question. "I'm so sorry Chuck, I didn't know the comic book was valuable."

"What? Of course, the FF#1 was CGC grade seven, my dad gave it to me…it was worth maybe $23,000."

I kept prodding him about the laptop. "Was there any important information on the laptop?"

I clearly remembered his anger about losing the FF#1. He was really pissed but surprisingly was merely annoyed about the other items I'd taken.

Again, I poked him about the laptop….."Aren't you worried about the laptop?"

For the first time his tone was upbeat. "Nah, I'm not too worried."

I could almost feel him smiling over the phone. "I'd love to be there when the thief tries to break into the laptop."

Now I was confused. "What do you mean?"

Chuck laughed. "Trust me, if they actually manage to get into the laptop then they'll hit the encryption layer."

I asked him. "Do you mean the thief won't be able to break the encryption?"

"Sure he can." He laughed again. "If the thief works for the NSA. The NSA might be able to crack the encryption layer in maybe two months." There were a couple moments of silence on the phone.

As an afterthought he mumbled. "Quantum computers could crack the code in a day. But I don't think anyone has them up and running….yet."

**Day 32**

Brett Cousins woke me up with an early morning phone call the next day. These idiots in Langley never take into consideration the time zone difference. Brett wasn't very happy.

He filled me in on what had happened after his guys in the Cyber department got Chuck's laptop.

It took the CIA four hours to finally break into the laptop. To quote Brett, "The security layers Bartowski set up were clever."

Then Brett's people hit the whole disc encryption layer. The Cyber team tried a 'cold boot attack' that failed. I had no clue what the hell Brett was talking about when he got in technical details.

The CIA suspected that Chuck had taken commercial encryption software and adapted it.

Brett said his team threw up their hands and passed the laptop off to the NSA. He thought the NSA might have an answer in seven or eight weeks.

Chuck had been correct.

The Director contacted me that evening. I was given a new mission and my mission objectives regarding Chuck were broadened.

Director Graham informed me that since I was in the LA area, he'd agreed to a request from the Director of the DEA.

Agent Carina Miller had asked for Agent Sarah Walker's assistance in San Diego. I was okay with helping Carina out since Chuck was working sixty hours a week at the Buy More. In my opinion he was doing his job and part of his boss's job.

What floored me after talking with Langston Graham was my changed mission with regards to Chuck Bartowski.

The CIA had questions about the level of Chuck Bartowski's computer skills.

Brett Cousins wondered if Bartowski might be some sort of 'closet' computer savant.

I was instructed to do all I could to find out what information was on the laptop. Find out if Chuck had backed up the data, and if so, find the backups.

Brett told me about a special list kept by Homeland Security.

There were twelve hackers that the government was looking to identify, maybe recruit or, failing that… arrest and throw them into a Federal Prison for ten or twelve years.

According to Brett Cousins, MI6 and GCHQ, had another list of ten hacker names they were looking for in Europe. A few of the names were on both lists; Orion, Sisyphus, Leonidas, and the Piranha.

Brett and the Director didn't believe Chuck was on either of these elite hacker lists. I asked why they believed that.

Their logic seemed pretty solid to me.

_1\. Bartowski works at a Buy More, he doesn't own a car, he doesn't wear flashy clothes and he barely has three hundred dollars in his bank account._

_2\. Chuck doesn't have twenty thousand dollars' worth of state of the art computer equipment, routers and servers sitting in his room, which an elite hacker would need to have in order to do their work. _

_QED…Chuck Bartowski probably isn't an elite hacker. _

Nonetheless, until we found out what was on the laptop, I was told to keep looking.

I needed to check out his place of employment and see if he was using the Buy More as a hacker haven.

Great, just great.

The mission had turned into a freaking marathon instead of the sprint I had planned for.

The Director asked me if it was time to get a lot closer to the mark.

Director Graham would never ask me directly to have sex with a mark. If he did, I'd refuse, which he knew from past experience.….. but nonetheless he's still pushing me hard for answers.

I remembered muttering to myself, "'Get Closer"?

What the hell did they expect me to do? What else did they want from me?

Drag Chuck over to the bed and tie his wrists to the headboard (a la Carina). Have hot sex with him? Get engaged, marry the guy, have his baby, all in the aid of getting some Intel. Typical bureaucratic CIA bullshit.

**Day 33**

**San Diego, Leon Avenue, 8am**

The very next day, I was sitting in a non-descript faded green Honda Accord with my ex CAT member.

We were watching the industrial park in front of us, taking photographs of the comings and goings. The industrial park was a polyglot of small businesses and warehouses. The park was less than a mile and a quarter from the border.

The cartel might have a tunnel operating somewhere in the area. The DEA wanted to find it.

It wasn't lost on me that I'd been relegated to the more mundane aspects of being a federal agent. Gone were the days of me hopping on and off G5s. A small part of me missed having breakfast in Washington and a late dinner in Amsterdam.

However, on the plus side, I had a break from playing the Lord High Executioner on behalf of Langston Graham.

Carina snapped some more photographs through the D3 Nikon with the three hundred millimetre lens.

"Looks like the same as yesterday. I'm not seeing anything suspicious." She put the camera down on the seat beside her.

I knew she was about to start her mini inquisition. "So, blondie….what are you doing up in LA?"

She was one of the few friends I had in this world. "Need to know Carina, you know that…."

Carina picked up the camera and took some more photographs. "So are you getting some action with this latest mark, or maybe another agent? Is Bryce in town are the two of you hooking up?"

I knew she was trying to get a reaction out of me. "Carina, stop fishing. You don't need to worry about whether I'm getting any action or not… I'm fine."

I grabbed the camera and took several pictures of people leaving the warehouse.

Carina was forever trying to 'hook me up' with guys. She'd even invited me out on a double date with her and two other DEA agents. "Come on Sarah, it'll be a blast." _No thank you Carina._

I appreciated what Carina was trying to do for me. In her own odd way she cared about me.

I'd never been a party girl. My mind wasn't in that space.

Stake outs had long stretches of crushing boredom and periods of silence. Thoughts about Chuck Bartowski would appear and disappear like wispy ghosts during those periods of silence.

Was he a computer savant? Would the NSA find AI treasures hidden away on his laptop? Was Chuck working as a hacker from the place he worked, the Buy More?

How might I get closer to Chuck? Would I need to arrange a sleepover? That's when I smiled.

Carina caught my smile. "Sarah, what's got you smiling? Time to share with your friend."

I turned towards Carina. "I'm thinking about Artificial Intelligence and algorithms."

Carina shook her head. "My God, it's now official …you've truly become the most boring person I know."

**{}**

**Day 34**

I visited Chuck at work in order to see the layout of the Buy More and the type of security systems they used.

I'd planned to break into the Buy More in the middle of the night and set up four micro cameras with built in microphones. After getting an idea of the layout of the store there were two areas I'd bug. The Home Theatre Room and the area the Nerd Herd called the 'Cage'.

I needed to quickly find determine if the Buy More was Chuck's 'hacker' lair. Day by day, my hope became stronger that he wasn't a person of interest to the CIA.

My orange top with the spaghetti straps and my white Capri pants were a hit with Chuck. I could see it in his brown eyes. When I kissed him lightly on the lips, he was thrilled and embarrassed in equal measure. He really didn't like PDAs.

He introduced me to Jeff, Lester, Anna and some obnoxious person called Harry.

It was obvious the Buy More male employees, apart from Morgan, couldn't quite grasp how on earth Chuck had met someone like me.

**Day 35**

Chuck called me early in the morning and invited me out to Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro. The DEA and Carina didn't need me that day….so I said yes.

He made a point of telling me, "This beach is a special place and I wanted to share it with you."

Two feelings came upon me instantly, one was a warm feeling of gratitude, the other was a wave of guilt about me having to do my shitty job.

I can't remember when I last went to the beach, just to sit around, to relax, have a picnic lunch and look out into the endless Pacific Ocean. Strangely even though this was all about the mission, I felt myself relax, my mind wandered. At one point, I actually believed I was on a real date.

It took several minutes for me to refocus on what I was supposed to be doing.

The agent in me felt the time was now right to talk about AI. Try to get an idea about whether Chuck was the person who dumped all the new algorithms onto the open source site.

I edged into the conversation by talking about my concerns regarding Artificial Intelligence. I speculated that AI would take over the world, putting hundreds of millions of people out of work. AI would make everything in Orwell's book, 1984, a grim reality.

It was like I'd pushed the button on a generator.

I immediately got lesson 101 on AI. He gave me a concise overview of what was going on in the AI field, he then moved on to talk about algorithms. We then debated about the impact of AI on the average man or woman.

I kept playing the devil's advocate and he kept answering my questions with thoughtful and well-reasoned answers. I was impressed.

Chuck was able to take complex ideas and break them down so I could understand them. He'd make a damn good teacher. What the hell was he doing selling computers and cell phones at the Buy More?

So, with real conviction in my voice, I told him exactly that. "You'd make a hell of a good teacher."

The next words out of mouth really surprised me. "Chuck you need to leave the Buy More."

He looked at me seriously, his dark brown eyes probing mine to make sure I wasn't mocking him.

He asked me if I really believed what I'd said. I told him, yes, he could do much better as a teacher or whatever he wanted to do.

It was later on that night, when I realized that I had been a hundred per cent sincere when I told Chuck he was special. Telling someone the truth about themselves didn't mean you were compromised. I remember telling myself that I was fine and still able to complete the mission.

**{}**

A/N3- _The Underhanded C event is a programming contest to turn out code that is malicious, but passes a rigorous inspection, and looks like an honest mistake even if discovered. The contest rules define a task, and a malicious component. Entries must perform the task in a malicious manner as defined by the contest, and hide the malice. Contestants are allowed to use C-like compiled languages to make their programs._


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N-** Thank you for the reviews and PMs. Thanks to michaelfmx for editing the story. Sarah's story is in first person.

**Trivia**. *OSS, Office of Strategic Services, formed June 13, 1942 by order of President Roosevelt. *SOE, Special Operations Executive, formed July 22, 1940 by instigation of Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

_ "__Yes,' I said. 'There are trustworthy people in this world, but you have to take such unacceptable risks to find out who they are." _

**― ****Len Deighton, Mexico Set**

**Chapter 4**

**Lisbon, Portugal, July 25, 2009 6am**

**24 Rua Falcao Trigoso**

Twelve months had passed since Sarah had last seen Chuck Bartowski. Why, then, was it that she gave so much of her spare time to thinking about him? She shifted her body to look out of the bedroom window. Sunrise would occur at 6:32am. A detail Sarah already knew from her mission planning.

In fifteen minutes she would rise, shower, dress and go to meet her watch team. They'd make their plans for the day. Hopefully her plan would work and they could tape the conversation between Faidi Zuebidi and the cell leader from Frankfurt. Sarah wasn't forgetting the original purpose of her mission …capture close up and detailed photos of Faidi.

Soon, soon, she would be able to push thoughts about Chuck into a compartment way in the back of her mind. Then she could do her job and complete her mission.

But not just yet. She continued to ask herself the same questions, to think about the would haves, should haves and might haves. Sarah Walker had fallen in love with Chuck.

When? Yes, when did that happen? How the hell had she even allowed it to happen? Is it possible to prevent love from happening, that's what she should've done…stopped it dead in its tracks.

Two events had broken her walls and let him in. The events followed one after the other in the space of a mere eight days.

**Sarah's Story, Eight Days**

**Burbank, Maison23**

**2007**

**Day 39**

Five days after I'd easily defeated the security systems at the Buy More and planted the bugs, I continued to wait for any information from the CIA analysts at Langley. Two analysts had been assigned to monitor Chuck or any other member of his Nerd Herd who were using the store's computer equipment in a suspicious manner.

The question remained. Was there an elite hacker using the Buy More to ply their craft. Was that person Chuck Bartowski?

The analysts reported that apart from Jeff, Lester and Morgan looking at porn sites, nothing much was happening. Chuck was either fixing phones, computers, printers or he was getting rid of viruses on customer's computers. However he was not doing anything suspicious.

Chuck had been busy the last month, along with Ellie and Devon. The three of them were helping out a neighbor in the complex. She was an old lady, who was very ill. In fact she was on her last legs.

Ellie had bumped into the neighbor at Westside Medical Center. The doctor in Ellie had soon figured out that the neighbor had stage four pancreatic cancer. The Bartowskis had it engrained into their DNA to help people lighten their load if they could.

Chuck called me that afternoon for my help.

He quickly explained that the old lady, a Madelaine Ross, who was 83, lived in their complex, two units to the left. Ellie, Devon and Chuck, along with some private nurses, would take shifts watching over Madelaine.

According to Ellie, Madelaine had maybe a week or so left to live. The old lady did not want to die in a hospital. No heroic measures were to be taken. An iron clad DNR was in place and instructions left by the bed.

Chuck's dilemma was that he was covering the five to nine pm shift with Madeline, until the evening nurse would take over. However, he had a problem because he had an install to do at the same time.

I wanted to say no for so many reasons.

I'd seen too much death, caused too many deaths. I hesitated, but Chuck almost pleaded with me. So, I reluctantly agreed to do it. He quickly told me where the key was and that he'd call Madelaine to let her know I was coming.

Chuck told me about Madelaine's routine. She was at her best in the morning after the night nurse left. Madelaine would use the walker to do a circuit of her apartment, just so she could get out of the bedroom.

In the afternoons she ran out of steam and would take to her bed.

Ellie and Devon would each spend two or three hours with her, if their shifts permitted. The private nurses covered the late evenings and nights.

Chuck told me the important thing I had to do was to make sure Madeline took her two pain pills at 6pm.

She would drift in and out of consciousness once she had the pain pills.

I opened the door with the key and called out Madelaine's name. A voice responded from down the hall. The bedroom door was partially open. I knocked and was told to come in.

The window was open and a fan was creating a gentle breeze. There was a walker, a commode and several bottles of pills on a side table. The TV mounted on the wall was turned off.

Madelaine was sitting up in a hospital bed amongst several pillows. Her hair had turned white and had been cut short. She had once been a tall woman but the cancer and the years seemed to make her smaller.

The one thing the cancer hadn't taken from her was her fierce intelligence, which burned brightly in her green eyes. She also possessed a quick wit.

"I hope you're Sarah? If not take the TV but leave me my pain pills."

I assured her I was Sarah and sat down in a chair beside the bed.

She wanted to know how I knew Chuck. I briefly explained I was his friend and what I did.

She asked me if I meant I was his girlfriend. I responded that perhaps 'friend' would probably be more accurate at the moment.

Madelaine shared with me that her husband, Sean, had died two years ago. Life had been harder without him.

During the next hour we talked and told each other a little about ourselves.

Madelaine told me the truth about herself and I spouted my legend, a euphemism for lies. Madelaine's green eyes brightened when I shared with her that I was a linguist and what languages I spoke.

From time to time, Madelaine would wince from the pain, put her hand up and stop talking.

Once the pain passed, she'd start talking right where we'd left off in our conversation.

My phone buzzed and I pulled it out and turned off the alarm. "Madelaine, Chuck told me that you need to take the pain pills at exactly 6pm."

"Yes, soon, dear, soon. I'm enjoying our conversation. If I take the pills, I'm afraid I drift off and am not the best conversationalist."

Twenty minutes later, the pain was too much for her to bear. She looked at me and said, "The pills are in the blue bottle near the clock." I turned my head and my right hand started to reach for the bottle.

I immediately stopped. For three or four heartbeats I was a statue…..the Ice Queen… frozen.

Madelaine had asked for the pills… in Russian.

I turned towards her and our eyes locked. She gave me a ghost of a smile and addressed me in English. "My, my, you didn't say you also spoke Russian."

I'd been trapped by this clever old lady…. like a rank amateur.

I handed her the pain pills and a glass of water.

She avoided eye contact with me and swallowed her pills. Just before she closed her eyes and laid her head back on the pillows, I'm certain a little smile appeared on her lips, as if she was pleased with herself.

Since I'd already told her I spoke French during our earlier conversation, she switched to French to tell me that the pills would take effect in ten minutes. She asked me if I'd mind speaking French with her until she drifted off.

She told me about being brought up in France. The conversation was easy and pleasant.

Madelaine switched topics, and shared with me how she had a great affection for Chuck. She wanted me to understand how kind and attentive he'd been to her these last four weeks.

Nine minutes later, the morphine claimed her and she fell asleep.

Who the hell was this old lady, who spoke passable Russian and fluent French? I stood up, as the spy in me took over. My spy senses were madly twitching. I cased her entire apartment looking for something, any kind of clue as to her background.

An hour later I found a shoe box hidden behind a wooden panel in the spare bedroom closet.

I remember an instructor at the Farm whose mantra was, '_Diamond cuts diamond, it takes a spy to find a spy's secret'. _

**{}**

**The Mystery of Madelaine Ross**

The shoebox was a time capsule, fragments of her past and, for me, a glimpse of a life lived during extraordinary times. Inside were old photographs, several expired passports, a marriage license, a diary and a well maintained pistol.

Only later was I able to identify the gun as a German made Sauer 38H, it was from World War II.

I quickly went through the photographs. I didn't recognize any of the people in them. However, there was one photograph of three people, two young men in uniform and a young woman, also in uniform.

They were standing in front of a four-engine plane. Again, afterwards, I found out the plane was a Handley Page Halifax. The young woman was good looking with dark hair. The eyes gave her away, because I was certain I was looking at Madelaine Ross as a young woman.

The small leather diary with very thin paper might contain clues to the photographs and passports. The first entry set the tone.

_June 7, 1944._

_This will be my last entry for a while. We are going to be dropped near Villers-Bocage. I can't take my diary. I'm assigned to the Jedburgh Team, 'Thomas'. John and I are with the OSS while Sean is SOE. There are only three women who've been selected by the OSS to parachute into France. I am one of them… because I was born in France and spent twelve years in Villers-Bocage, with my American father and French mother. I still know many families in this area who might assist us._

_We're to organize resistance, assassinate German officers, and slow down German resupply. If I don't return_,_ please forward this diary to my mother in New York._

I had only been looking at the contents of the box for five minutes when I was suddenly startled. I heard footsteps outside.

I reached for my gun but stopped when I heard Chuck singing to himself outside. I barely managed to hide the shoebox back behind the panel in the closet before the front door opened.

Chuck and I spent the next hour sitting beside the bed, while Madelaine slept. I could barely contain myself and desperately wanted to go back into the other room. Get the shoebox and read the diary and look through the photographs in detail.

"Chuck, what do you know about Madelaine….and her life?"

He pursed his lips. "Well, not a lot. She and Sean lived here for twenty years, in this apartment. Ellie and Devon moved into Echo Park six years ago.

"I met her husband, Sean, only a couple of times before he died. She's nice, I like her a lot. Madelaine's a smart lady, we've talked a lot over the last month. I think Madelaine and Sean did a lot of travelling before they finally settled down in Echo Park."

Chuck smiled at me. "I shared with Madelaine that I want to visit Paris one day. She told me several places that I absolutely must visit."

**Day 40**

I asked Ellie to include me in the care rotation for Madelaine. Ellie was pleased when I'd asked and I now covered the five to nine pm shift. Ellie was very thankful because it would reduce the time Madelaine had to pay for a private duty nurse.

My motives were mixed and not as noble as Ellie might have thought. I needed to see the shoebox of secrets again.

When I arrived at her apartment, Madelaine seemed happy to see me. The whole time we conversed in French.

After I gave her the pills she drifted off. I almost ran to the spare bedroom to find the shoebox. When I moved the wooden panel… the shoebox of secrets was gone. Shit.

I spent an hour and a half looking for Madelaine's secrets, there was nothing.

**Day 41**

I walked into Madelaine's room at exactly five pm. She told me she was looking forward to being with Sean. I had no earthly idea…. what to say to her comment… I let a silence descend that lasted two or three minutes.

Madelaine broke the silence. Once again the entire conversation was in French.

"Sarah, have you met him yet."

"Met who?"

"The person who steals your heart."

I wondered where she was going with the conversation. I offered up a platitude. "Work….it keeps me busy….."

Madelaine put her hand up as the pain dominated her. Finally the pain passed, she sagged back into the pillows. After a couple of minutes she appeared to rally a bit and looked at me. Madelaine's green eyes could grab and capture you instantly. I stared back at her.

Madelaine smiled at me. "It's gone."

"What's gone?" I knew and Madelaine knew what was gone. The damn shoebox was gone.

Somehow this old lady had figured out I was trying to find out her secrets. How the hell had she managed to move the box. I wondered if someone had helped her. The box must have been moved in the morning when she had enough strength to move around. Damn it.

She lay her head back in the nest of pillows. "Never mind dear…..I think it's almost time for my pain pills."

Madelaine fell asleep ten minutes later. I spent another two hours in a fruitless and frustrating search for the missing shoebox of secrets.

**Day 42**

Chuck and I both covered the five pm to nine pm shift with Madelaine.

Her breathing was more labored than yesterday and she had trouble focusing. When she did manage to talk, it was in French. I translated for Chuck.

We gave her the pills at six pm and waited for the inevitable drowsiness to claim her.

Five minutes later, she looked at Chuck, then at me.

In French she asked, "Is he the one?" Once again Madelaine had managed to surprise me. I hadn't allowed myself to think about Chuck in terms of there ever being an 'us'. I told myself that it was the morphine causing Madelaine to say such strange things.

Chuck fixed me with his dark brown eyes and asked me what she'd said… I lied to him. "Chuck, she says she's tired."

Madelaine never woke. Her death was a gentle release from this life….. a long last breath. When I looked up at the clock it was 7:45pm. I'd seen death close up, I knew she'd been swept away from her pain wracked body.

Chuck silently wept beside me when he realized she was dead. I reached out and held his hand. Imagine my surprise when I realized my cheeks were wet. It had been such a very long time since I truly cried, for anyone.

Many times afterwards I wondered who in fact I was crying for.

Was it for Madelaine who'd lived a long life with a husband who she loved? Was it for Chuck and my sadness for all the shitty things I'd done to him in the name of 'doing your duty'? Or in that moment had I dreamed the impossible? Dreamt of a life together with Chuck and instantly dismissed it?

We sat together, side by side, holding hands… and for a precious five minutes we were truly together, with one common purpose.

After he wiped the tears from his eyes, he called Ellie and Devon to come over. They did what doctors do instinctively, they made sure Madelaine was dead. They then said goodbye to her and pronounced her death. The undertaker came forty-five minutes later.

Ellie signed the death certificate and they took her away.

Madelaine had made all the arrangements prior to her death. There would be no funeral or memorial service. She was gone. I grieved the loss of Madelaine; the spy in me grieved the loss of her secrets.

**Day 45**

I saw Chuck twice after Madelaine's death. The dates, if you can call them that, were subdued affairs. We talked about his work at the Buy More and watched some movies. There were long silences.

However, I didn't find myself uneasy sitting quietly beside Chuck. I welcomed it when he slipped his arm around my shoulders. I was barely conscious of leaning in closer to him, each of us lost in our own thoughts.

I mentioned to him that I was working with some other consultants in San Diego and might be out of contact for a few days.

I knew what he was thinking, _'she's going to disappear again for days if not weeks'_. I grabbed his hand and told him to text me and gave him the number for my burner phone. I was rewarded with a grateful smile.

The message or the lie, I told myself at the time, was don't worry Agent Walker, you're not compromised. Giving my cell number to him, while I was with Carina….. was just good trade craft.

**Day 47**

**San Diego, Leon Avenue. 7:30am**

They DEA had found the cartel's tunnel, thanks to Carina and my efforts. Our innate curiosity and doggedness had yielded 'fruit'.

The tunnel was wonderfully camouflaged.

It must've taken the Cartel several years to dig this out by hand. They'd managed to avoid the listening devices put in place by the Customs and Border Patrol. The listening devices would've easily detected any type of machinery working underground.

The tunnel was cleverly integrated into a school bus repair depot.

The depot was owned by a numbered company, which in turn was owned by another four numbered companies ultimately registered in Panama. The DEA was still trying to track down the named directors.

The clue that we had picked up on was the turnaround time for repairing the buses. We'd spent five long tedious days timing the repair times for individual buses.

It was just too damn quick.

Bus engines were prone to overheating in the hot weather. They needed regular servicing and maintenance to keep them running.

According to mechanical engineers and experienced mechanics the DEA consulted with, a reasonable time range for repairs to school buses should've been four to twelve hours, not two.

The twelve man DEA tactical team was briefed and deployed to isolate and secure the bus depot. They were ready to go.

Carina and I had our body armor on and field green DEA jackets.

In order to secure the outer perimeter, four two-person teams were assigned to the points of the compass. Carina and I were placed on the western side of the perimeter to contain any runners, which would be highly unlikely.

In front of us was a Welding and Supply Company building and a smaller shed. There were five pickup trucks parked in front of the building.

Drones were already deployed to give the team an idea about who they might be facing. There were seven men inside the depot, according to the infrared and thermal scans. The men were all dressed as mechanics with dirty gray overalls.

The tactical 'comms' link was on a secure encrypted channel. We heard two clicks in our ears. _Two minute warning._

Carina looked over at me. "Ready Blondie?" I nodded. We didn't expect any real drama, the DEA tactical team would handle the take down and deal with the sicarios inside.

We both heard the command from the tactical team leader over the comms net. "Go, Go, Go."

Everything seemed to be proceeding according to the original plan. The sound of gunshots was expected.

What wasn't expected were the two explosions, inside the building. That hadn't been in the plan.

I instinctively pressed the select switch on my MP5 and moved it from safe to three round bursts. Carina was a half second behind me and mumbled, "Let's get behind the blue dumpster."

We both looked at each other and had the same premonition. I voiced it. "Shit's about to hit the fan."

A long six minutes later, four men burst from the small tool shed. It must've been an escape route the Cartel had set up months ago. Later, the DEA would discover the tunnel leading from the Bus Depot to the shed.

The four sicarios had a mixture of weapons, AK47, Mac10, MP5 and an AR-15.

They saw us. There was no hesitation on their part. They started firing, all their weapons were on full automatic.

We instantly ducked down.

Dozens of shots slammed into the blue dumpster. It rang like a bell pealing out a chaotic hymn of death; we moved along the dumpster and popped up firing controlled bursts.

Carina and I alternated our firing in order to reload. One sicario in an orange T-shirt had managed to flank us. He burst around the edge of the dumpster and fired. One round caught Carina on her Kevlar vest.

She grunted with the impact and her back slammed into the dumpster.

I hit the sicario with a three round burst, in the neck and head, in case he was wearing body armor.

Ten seconds later, Carina was up and firing again. Seconds later, she shouted "reloading" and ducked down.

I moved four feet along the dumpster from where I'd last popped up and fired.

I caught one of sicarios in gray coveralls moving from right to left across the open space. The red blossoms on his gray coveralls marked my hits. He was dead before he hit the ground.

The other sicario had sacrificed his friend, used him as bait. He was waiting for me to shoot the sacrificial lamb. He fired at me on full automatic.

Two of the ten bullets fired at me hit me on the left side. It felt like a mule had kicked me. I fell on my right shoulder.

Carina popped up, and caught the sicario reloading, she switched to full automatic and emptied the entire clip. It was poor fire discipline but she was furious that this man had shot me. Three sicarios were down, one was left.

I had managed to get up on my knees, my right shoulder was sore and my left side hurt like hell.

Carina knelt beside me, making sure I was okay. She was also hurting but managed to slap another magazine into the MP5.

In the next instance we heard two bursts of MP5 fire. Then there was silence for several seconds.

Finally, a question materialized into our earbuds from the DEA team tactical leader.

"Agent Miller, Agent Walker, are you okay? We got him. The area is clear."

**{}**

**Two Hours Later**

The adrenaline in our bodies had drained away and was long gone.

I had two bruises on my left side and my right shoulder ached.

Carina had a bruised right rib. We sat side by side on the end of the ambulance after we'd been carefully checked out by the doctor on scene who'd fussed over both of us for another fifteen minutes and finally cleared us to go home.

We were told to take tomorrow off and then submit our written reports and be debriefed.

The raid had been a success. The IED's had gone off prematurely, they'd deafened and bruised some members of the DEA tactical team, but fortunately, everyone was going home tonight.

Carina leant over to me. "Well, there goes another one of my nine lives."

I knew my friend well, in spite of the bravado, Carina had been rattled by being shot. Hell, so was I.

She was exhausted. "Sarah, I'd invite you over but I think I'm going to take some pain pills and go to bed. I'll see you back in the office, we can work on our report later.

I stood up and winced. "I'm going back to LA." I dry swallowed one of the pain pills the doctor gave me.

A DEA agent was standing by. She drove me back to Maison23.

**{}**

**Maison23 Burbank**

Two and half hours later, I got back to my green colored apartment. I collapsed onto a couch, I'd had put into the room.

I hadn't laughed when Carina said that she'd used up another one of her nine lives. I knew we were living on borrowed time. No matter how good you were, no matter how much you planned, it boiled down to statistics.

The more times you put yourself in harm's way, the greater the probability that mortal harm would come and collect. Luck had been on my side this time.

Ten minutes later, I knew I needed to get my ass moving. Take off my clothes and attempt to take a shower.

I had stiffened up during the ride back.

I toyed with the idea of dry swallowing two of the pain pills and falling to sleep on the couch. In the morning I'd feel a little better. Anything else was just too difficult to contemplate.

Some help would've been nice. Who was going to help me? I sure as hell wasn't going to call the CIA and ask them for a nurse maid.

I didn't have any friends in LA, apart from Carina. She'd probably already popped the pain pills and was now fast asleep.

There was someone I could call, but I needed to get my story straight.

_Chuck, it was a stupid accident_…_I was running in the park…..I wasn't looking and fell on my left side, I hit some stones and also jammed my right shoulder. _

I grimaced when I reached for my phone in my back pocket. _'God that really hurt.'_

I scrolled through some numbers until I found him.

For two or three minutes my thumb hovered over the phone number.

An unwanted voice in the back of my mind sounded a warning. _'This is a bad idea, stop feeling sorry for yourself, suck up the pain, you're not going to die.' _I'd been down this road before. In the past, I'd sucked up the pain and soldiered on, just like I'd been taught to do at the Farm.

He would come, he'd drop everything to help me. He was that kind of man.

I groaned when I repositioned myself on the couch. If I was ever going to get out of these sweat stained, smelly clothes and shower before I took the pain pills….. I needed him…..now. The unwanted voice warned me off ….again.

_You can't call someone who's a mark…WTF….. and have him come over to see you like this, weak and feeble. You've been trained to endure pain. Shower in the morning! Take the damn pills, slip into a morphine fog. Don't go against what you've been taught._

I remember my Crie de Coeur. _I don't want to suck the pain up_.

I remember thinking at the time…..I'm not some wounded animal who has to crawl away into a cave to suffer silently, then slowly heal and lick its wounds.

Chuck will come and he won't think of me as pathetic.

I pressed the number.

**A/N2**\- _Jedburgh Teams actually did exist. _

_The first team, codenamed "Hugh", parachuted into central France near Châteauroux the night before the Allied landings in Normandy, codenamed Operation Overlord. In total, 93 Jedburgh teams operated in 54 French metropolitan départements between June and December 1944._

**{}**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N**\- Sarah's story continues and we also hear more from Chuck's perspective. Merci, michaelfmx. Who owns Chuck? I think WillieGarvin now owns the rights; a clever reverse takeover from the original scriptwriters.

**Trivia:** Orienteering, using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain whilst moving at speed.

_"__It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness." _

**― ****Leo Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata**

**Chapter 5**

**Day-47- Afternoon**

**Maison23 Burbank**

Before Chuck arrived, I needed to hide my gun and ankle leather holster that held my throwing knives.

Through gritted teeth, groans and moans, I reached my gun and knives and dropped them down at my feet onto the carpet. I grabbed a throw pillow from the couch. Using the throw pillow and my heel, I was able to push the gun and knives farther under the couch…almost to the wall. He wouldn't see them.

There was a sound at the door. I'd installed a motion sensor in the hallway. A tiny blue light flashed over the top piece of the door frame. I really hoped that it was Chuck, because if it wasn't, I was almost defenseless.

I'd called down to reception and told them to give Chuck a card key to my room. I heard the click from the lock mechanism.

He came in and gave me a warm smile, his eyes, though, were full of concern. I shrugged my shoulders. S_hit that hurt_. "Chuck, I'm such a clumsy ditz….I really appreciate you coming over…..I need you."

The first thing I needed to do was have him help me stand up and get to the bathroom.

By clenching my jaw until it almost ached, I was able not to make any groaning sounds. Once we got into the bathroom, we stood and looked at each other, seconds ticked by, and his brown eyes held me captive.

I needed to put him at ease for what was to come. "Chuck, I need to get out of these clothes and take a shower."

"Ahh, okay, I'll be right outside the door. When you're finished I'll help you into bed."

He still didn't get it.

"Chuck, my accident….….I was running very fast when I fell on my left side. There were rocks and the ground was hard. I bruised some ribs." I could see the concern in his eyes grow.

"My right shoulder is throbbing from where I hit the ground. I can barely lift my arms up ….you….you need to undress me."

The tumblers turned in Chuck's mind and clicked, his eyes widened. "Sarah, maybe I should call Ellie, she's a doctor and you know …also, you might prefer a woman to help you."

"I don't need a doctor!" That came out short and angry sounding.

"Okay….?" He reacted to my anger and took a half step back.

I got rid of the anger in my voice. "Ellie's working….. She's helping people who are really sick."

He needed more assurance from me. "Chuck, I trust you….I really do….please take these off."

Together we managed to take off my white cotton t-shirt. I couldn't help myself, I groaned when I lifted my right arm up over my head.

I sat down on the toilet seat.

He took my tactical boots off and peeled my socks off. I know he was wondering about my choice of jogging shoes. Who the hell jogs in tactical boots?

"Chuck, the boots are for….for when I do orienteering races, I need the ankle support."

He nodded his head. "Okay, I've heard the term….Devon enters orienteering races with his frat friends." Thank God Chuck trusted me and that he wasn't a runner.

He helped me take off my gray tactical pants. There was no way I could've taken these off without his help.

From his position kneeling down at my feet, he looked up as he pushed the pants to one side. "Sarah, do you always run in these pants…..you must sweat like a pig…sorry… I didn't mean you're a pig."

Any other time I would've laughed out loud. "I'm trying to lose weight, sweating like a pig helps me do that…." Chuck was so focused on helping me that he didn't dwell on my absurd choice of jogging pants.

The next bit was going to be very interesting for him and for me. I was now down to my bra and panties.

"Chuck, I want to take a shower, clean myself up and shampoo my hair." I smelled like the yellow dumpster Carina and I had been hugging for dear life back in San Diego, when the Sicarios had been shooting at us. The odors had permeated my clothes and my hair, I stunk.

Poor Chuck, he was nervous and he was stuck about what came next. "Chuck, please take your clothes off."

"What!" He stood up quickly and knocked a towel off the rack.

He needed to hear from me that…. it was okay. "Chuck, you're going to help me into the shower. You're going to stay with me and…help me clean myself. I can't shampoo my own hair."

I was looking at those dark brown eyes for understanding. I saw a flash of further confusion and something else. Maybe I got it wrong, but was there a split second of pure delight?

"If you go into the shower… with all your clothes on….well…." I let the sentence hang in the air.

His Adam's apple moved up and down two or three times.

"Chuck, I'm okay with you seeing me like this…..I meant it when I said I trust you."

Chuck blushed when he stripped down. I averted my eyes to make him feel somewhat more at ease with his impromptu striptease. But, heh, I'm a spy. Using my peripheral vision, and his reflection in the mirror, I saw what I wanted to see.

I felt the slight tremble in his hands when he took off my bra and panties. Finally, we went into the shower. I went first and he came behind me.

Once he started washing me and shampooing my hair, he became more focused and much less self-conscious.

Never in my life had I ever allowed a man to be in the shower with me. Carina raved about sex in the shower but, up to that moment, I'd never been a big fan of the idea.

He was a gentle, soothing presence beside me, as if he belonged there.

In the months that followed, I frequently dredged up the image of Chuck standing close to me in the shower, his naked body next to mine, his gentle hands touching me. There is a world of difference in being alone and being lonely. It was only after the shower that I finally understood the difference.

I was sore as hell, that's the only reason….I didn't swing around and start something that would've quickly spiralled out of control. Another road I didn't go down, another regret.

The hot water eased my suffering. Chuck did most of the work in washing me. When he'd rinsed my hair the second time, he manoeuvered me carefully out of the shower.

The moment had passed for us….and he was once again self-conscious about his nakedness and mine. He quickly grabbed two fluffy hotel towels, he fixed one around my body and one for my hair.

He dried himself with several quick swipes and quickly dressed himself. He then helped dry me with a fourth towel.

I groaned twice when he helped me into my nightie. Chuck slowly shepherded me from the bathroom into my bed. The irony of Chuck helping me into bed and how he had helped poor frail Madelaine Ross into her bed was not lost on me.

He got a glass of water and handed me the two pain pills. After I swallowed them, I looked up at him. "Thanks, Chuck …..I really mean it….you're a good and decent man."

His offer was laced with sincerity. "Do you want me to …..maybe….I mean stay….if you need…?"

"No, these pills are strong, I'll sleep for eight or ten hours." He looked disappointed. Hell, I was disappointed. But the spy part of me knew full well that I'd broken several rules when it came to dealing with a mark.

"Chuck, leave my cell phone beside me….if I need you…I promise … I'll call." I needed to do one last thing before I zonked out on the meds.

"Please bend down." When he got close enough… I lifted my head and gave him a kiss on the lips. I wanted his taste on my lips as I went to sleep.

It was after Chuck closed the door I regretted my decision to send him away. I didn't want to lose his presence near me, his place was here beside me. I debated with myself what to do. The spy in me lost the debate. I started to reach for the phone but the effort required was too great. I slipped into a dreamless sleep.

**Day-52**

I'd talked with Chuck during the intervening days but hadn't seen him; not since he'd been my ministering angel. My shoulder was on the mend and the rainbow colored bruises on the left side of my ribs looked less angry.

Brett Cousins called me at noon.

The NSA had recently installed a new supercomputer with a whole set of new software. They'd broken the encryption on Chuck's laptop much sooner than expected.

There was nothing suspicious on Chuck's laptop, absolutely nothing, zilch. There wasn't even any downloaded porn?

No algorithms, no treatises on Artificial Intelligence, no list of hacker friends or devilishly clever computer code to break down firewalls and break into servers, as if they were mere rice paper.

Brett sounded disappointed with the news.

I could feel the relief sweep through me. Chuck was innocent…..he would soon be rid of us all.

Brett's closing comments were, "Bartowski is a clever man, too bad we weren't successful in recruiting him to work for us. However, I don't think what he's done on the laptop is anything much beyond the training he received at Stanford. In another life he might have been a damn good software engineer."

I thanked Brett. Chuck was safe, he wasn't in the CIA or NSA crosshairs any longer.

Director Graham called me ten minutes after Brett hung up.

He was curt on the phone. He never raised his voice but I knew he was pissed.

"This mission has been a colossal waste of the CIA's time and its resources. My best agent….lost to me for almost a month….well, it stops now."

Graham's parting words were. "Bartowski is a dead end guy in a dead end job. He missed his chance to work with us and make something of his life. Time to come back to Washington Agent Walker. Report back to Langley in three days. Wind things up in Burbank." There was a click and he was gone.

Finally, my mission in Burbank was over. A good outcome for Chuck. Not the outcome the CIA wanted, but that's not my fault. I booked my flight back to DC.

Now I had to figure out the best way to end my fake relationship with Chuck and disappear from his life forever.

Other unbidden feelings quickly surfaced, they confused me at the time. Why was the air around me tinged with sadness, regret and flashes of anger? Why was I angry? Who was I angry with? What was I angry about?

I had one of the most unsettled night's sleep that I could remember. I recycled my feelings over and over, unable to stop them; unable to stop my mind from spinning and my body from feeling. I woke up exhausted and mildly depressed.

**Day-53 **

According to my instructors at the Farm, there are several ways to end a relationship with a mark. Imagine a spectrum if you will, with gentle on one end and deadly harsh on the other end.

The gentle way would be. _'Chuck it's me_,_ not you. You're a really nice guy_,_ but I think we need to end this…..I'm so sorry.'_ Usually both parties end up in tears, with the agent producing crocodile tears.

On parting from each other…the agent usually says, _'We can't really keep in contact because, well_,_ it would be just too painful for me. Finito."_

In the middle of the spectrum there is the '_unfaithful'_ route. You make sure the mark sees you, the agent, in a compromising situation. The mark becomes furious, hurt, angry or sad. In some cases, the mark wants to instantly forgive the agent …because they love 'him or her' so much.

That scenario can of course be switched around.

You can arrange for the mark to be discovered in a compromising situation with someone else (usually another asset) and then the agent can pretend to be furious, hurt, angry or sad. The end result is the same in both scenarios. _'We are so over!'_

The deadly harsh end is you terminate the mark. 'Lethal action' can only be done if it's sanctioned. There are eight members of Congress who make up a chummy, but deadly, little club, with unimagined powers of life and death.

I, of course, have never met any of the 'Gang of Eight'. Director Graham is my conduit to them. I've carried out many 'lethal actions'. Each one was sanctioned by Langston Graham, my mentor. I wonder if when Graham recruited me to his ranks, when I was seventeen, whether his vision for me was as an assassin. Did he see the killer in me that far back? However, with Langston Graham, you never know

I often wonder if he informs the 'Gang of Eight' after the fact. Forgiveness is easier than permission, I imagine.

I chose the gentlest way I could to leave Chuck. I blocked the word 'mark' from my thoughts as I planned for the ending of…..us.

At the time, I couldn't really fathom the depth of my feelings for him. I know now I was actually in love with him back then. However, it wasn't until many months later that I dared to use, or even think, the words, 'in love'.

The evening I chose to break up with Chuck was beautiful. A clear night sky, with light, warm breezes. For a thousand other couples this would be a magical evening, a night they'd long remember and cherish.

For me, it was the darkest of nights as I delivered my practiced words and said my final goodbyes to Chuck Irving Bartowski.

He was in tears; my own tears came easily. I'd cried before in front of people as part of the job, as part of the cover…it was easy for me to do. My father had taught me how to manufacture tears, in order to soften the marks.

The tears I cried that night were hot and they hurt as they ran down my cheek.

_So, that's it, mission over, goodbye Chuck, I hope you meet someone you deserve, because you deserve the very best. _

**{}**

**Back to the Present**

**Santuario de Nossa Senhora da Pendeda, Portugal, July 25, 2009**

**Chuck's Story**

I looked over at Father Owen when the old clock in the corner of the room struck midnight. The priest stood up and stretched his arms over his head. 'So that was it….. this woman, the mysterious Sarah, she just suddenly ended the relationship and departed?"

He mirrored my sadness. "And you never saw her again?"

I smiled at him and said, "Ahhh, no actually. I saw her one more time about a year later. It was the day after my birthday. I'll get to that later."

Before I continued my story, we left the study and went into the kitchen.

Owen Ruelas smiled when he saw the almond pastries in the fridge. "Thank God for Maria, blessings on her sainted head. She always leaves me a late night treat, we Portuguese call these pastries, 'Jesuites'.

We took two expressos and the pastries back into the study and closed the door.

After I finished inhaling the delicious almond pastries, the sugar hit revived me.

I told Owen that when Sarah ended our relationship so suddenly, I was heartbroken. At the time, when she left….I believed she was the one. It felt like another abandonment of somebody I loved.

The inevitable tailspin happened afterwards. I managed to go to work and function, but everyone around me could tell that I was miserable.

The difference between Sarah leaving me and Jill being unfaithful with Bryce was interesting.

I didn't handle losing Jill well. My moping around was pathetic, I can admit to that now.

This time around, I refused to just let life happen to me. I took action.

Owen asked me. "What did you do?"

It's probably not a good idea to lie to a Priest.

Okay, I didn't exactly lie….unless leaving out some important parts of the story is considered lying…..alright, I committed the sin of omission. I think that's a venial sin? How many 'Aves' do you have to say for a venial sin?

Like I said earlier. Unlike with Jill, this time I took action.

**{}**

**The Piranha Takes Charge**

Chuck Bartowski (me), who worked at the Buy More, is good with computers. The Piranha is freaking fantastic. It was the Piranha who started looking for Sarah Wells.

There was something bothering me about the beautiful woman who I'd falling in love with, and who'd disappeared. She never told me where she was headed. I had lots of unanswered questions.

There are several reasons why the Piranha has not been caught…..yet.

The first rule of being an elite hacker is don't do _'elite hacker shit'_ from home.

No matter how good you are, and let's be frank, your ego can be your biggest enemy.

If 'they' are suspicious…..'they're' going to check your residence…and your place of employment…...eventually. The government is ponderous, like an elephant… but not stupid.

And, if it's any of the alphabet government organizations coming to your home, they will take your place apart, right down to the studs, from the basement floor up to the rafters.

If anything is there, they'll find it.

So, when my laptop was stolen, it bothered me, but it didn't worry me, because there was nothing on the laptop that would incriminate me.

I did install some awesome anti-tampering devices on the laptop and I encrypted everything, but I did it because I could… for fun…I wanted to piss off anybody stupid enough to steal my computer.

If they ever managed to crack the encryption, they would eventually find nothing much of value.

Oh, one more tiny piece of information that I didn't share with Owen Ruelas. I definitely would need to go to confession after this…even though I'm not Catholic.

Two months after I got expelled from Stanford, I volunteered with the Central Library in Los Angeles?

Why? I did this for three reasons;

One, my sister Ellie told me to get my ass off the couch and out of the house. Ellie is a take action person. She told me that Jill Roberts wasn't worth the worry and regret.

Two, I love libraries, I lived in libraries after my dad abandoned us, it was a safe place for me…. being surrounded by books and computers.

And three, I found out that the Central Library has an awesome set of servers and fibre optic connections in the basement.

I volunteered my services and was hired.

Over the next three months I designed and ran a computer class that was for 'young nerds'.

After six months, they let me help out in the library IT department. I was at the library Wednesday evenings, as well as volunteering on Saturdays and Sundays.

Three months after volunteering at the library, I overheard some municipal workmen on the street, in front of the library. They were joking about not cutting the 'f…n' cables.

After talking with workmen, I clued into the fact ….that the main fibre optic undersea cable to the Pacific Rim went under the 101 & 110 intersection (less than a quarter mile from the library).

As an added bonus, I found out that there were six other cables in that particular nexus that connected all of North America.

It took me fifteen months, and help from another hacker called Orion, to figure out how to tap into the cables …ahhh but once I did it, the Piranha could go online with impunity.

When I used nested VPNs and plugged into the fibre optic cables, I was virtually untraceable. From that point onward, I did all of my Piranha work from the Los Angeles Central Library. That was my 'hacker' lair.

The Piranha started his quest to find the enigmatic Sarah Wells on the California DMV.

I had thirty hits but no one matched, okay….no need to panic. Maybe her license was registered on the Oregon database. After all that was where she was born, Ashland Oregon.

There were several hits but the photos didn't match.

Sarah Wells is a very common name. According to the 2000 US census, approximately 840,000 girls were named Sarah. I also found out that there are 209,000 people named Wells. If you do the math, that meant there were probably 531 Sarah Wells in the entire United States.

I didn't want to hack into fifty different DMV databases trolling for Sarah Wells, not smart.

The FBI had ready access to all the DMV's in the country.

A word about hacking into what I call the 'monsters'; you know the FBI, CIA, NSA and DOD. Don't!

Unless, that is, you can drop everything in ten minutes flat and make like a ghost after you've got past their firewall. The 'monsters' spend billions on Cyber security and hire guys like me to find hackers like me.

The longer you spent in their systems, the more likely it was that they would catch you. They could do some really nasty stuff, like shove a tracker onto your IP, or fire a Trojan virus right back at you.

It was a lot easier to know someone's user ID and password.

You could always count on someone being careless and not following the rules. Surprise, surprise, it even happened with FBI employees. One of my phishing emails got a hit from a Dorothy Inglewood, who worked in the Wilshire Office of the FBI.

She clicked on the link I set up '_Information on early retirement and your Federal Pension'. _

I was in and out of the FBI database in four minutes.

I felt bad about stealing Dorothy's password, I didn't think she would lose her job because of me. The best outcome for her and me was that no one would know I was even in their system. I was very careful.

Once I parsed the 'Sarah Wells' data by approximate age, height, and eye color, I had 82 hits. I eliminated the Californian hits because I'd already checked them.

It took me two days to conclude that the Sarah Wells I was looking for, didn't exist. Crazy, right, she simply didn't exist!

I then checked out her business, you know the gifted linguist gig….. Working with major corporations on negotiating contracts in South American and Europe.

I know there was a webpage for her consulting business because Sarah showed it to me. Now, when I looked for the website, there was nothing. The website had been completely expunged from the net, the domain name had been cleansed, which was not easy to do.

Perseverance was a virtue when you were the Piranha. I hacked into the Oregon registry for births and marriages. I did find a birth certificate for Sarah Elizabeth Wells, born Ashland Oregon, September 13, 1982. I then checked up on her parents and got a marriage licence.

I then let a spider loose, it crawled the Web looking for Frank and Shirley Wells. I got a hit, an article online. It was from the local newspaper, the Ashland's Tidings.

It was about Frank and Shirley's death in a tragic car crash on November 27, 1999.

The article mentioned a daughter who survived them, Miss Sarah Elizabeth Wells.

I knew about Sarah's parent's death. She'd shared the sad story with me, but when I gently pressed her for more details, she clammed up. So, I backed off and never asked any more questions about her parent's death.

Finally, something tangible. I felt this incredible urge…..I needed to go to Ashland, Oregon.

Devon loaned me his Jetta for the day. He and Ellie asked me why the hell I suddenly wanted to go to Ashland, Oregon. I told them the truth, I was trying to find out some more information about Sarah. I saw the worried look in Ellie's eye. "Chuck, maybe it's best if you just let her go…you know move on.".

She was right, but I couldn't shake the urge to go there. It would be a journey that took almost ten hours.

I stopped only once to use the washroom, grab a large coffee and refuel.

When I got to Ashland, I rushed into the registry office. A middle aged woman with salt and pepper hair, neatly pulled back into a bun, sat behind the counter.

Her name was Mrs. Frankie Thomson, a lady, I found out, who'd lived in Ashland for the last thirty five years.

I mentioned to her that I was doing genealogical research on behalf of a Samuel Wells. Mr. Wells wondered if he was related to Frank Wells. I paid for a copy of the birth certificate for Sarah Wells and the death certificate for Frank and Shirley.

Frankie Thomson gave me a receipt after I paid fifty bucks for the certificates.

She gave me a sad smile, "Trouble and hard times plagued poor Frank and Shirley."

I nodded sympathetically and told her it must have been brutal for their daughter Sarah to lose both of her parents like that.

Frankie gave me the strangest look. "What on earth are you talking about?"

I showed her the news article that I'd printed off. She looked at the article and pursed her lips. "That's not right…."

She went to the back room and pulled out an archived microfilm tape of the Ashland Tidings for November, 1999. The microfilm reader hummed as Frankie quickly found the original news article.

She pivoted the monitor around for so I could see the original article.

_Frank and Shirley Wells, long-time residents of Ashland_,_ were tragically killed in a head on collision with a drunk driver from Medford. The driver, Mr. Simon Grant, 28, has been arrested by the State Police. The DA has charged him with negligent homicide. _

_Services will be held at Holy Cross Church next Wednesday at 11am. The Wells were predeceased by their only child Sarah Elizabeth. _

When I looked up at Frankie, my mouth was hanging open. I started to stutter. "….I don't understand ….the article, I got it online…...it doesn't agree with what you're showing me…..I.."

Frankie Thomson was shaking her head. "I don't know what to say, sir…. Their daughter Sarah died when she was five. I was at the funeral, the little girl died from leukemia. Like I said, the Wells family was plagued with loss, sadness and hard times."

I was stunned and felt this rushing sound in my ears from the way my heart was hammering in my chest. WTF? When I finally zoned back into our conversation, I could see Frankie pointing.

My ears finally started to work and I heard her tell me that the cemetery was two miles due south. I mumbled a thank you to her, grabbed the certificates and rushed out the door to my car.

There it was, on the far left and four rows after you entered the cemetery. I found the marker for a five-year old girl named Sarah E. Wells. The date of death was December 7, 1987, age five.

I had a ten-hour drive back to Echo Park. It gave me a lot of time to deal with my shock and start to piece this puzzle together.

{}

I was a mess for the first two hours, I couldn't quite grasp the enormity of what I'd discovered.

I stopped in Stockton and grabbed some coffee and refueled. I finally started to calm down.

It was now obvious that the beautiful woman I met and fell head over heels in love with …wasn't really named Sarah Wells. The rational and logical part of my brain slowly started to take over.

It took expertise to get into the digital archive of the Ashland Tidings website and change the original news article that was posted online.

It took a high level of skill to make a person disappear from the DMV. Whoever did this also managed to wipe the internet clean of the business website that Sarah, or whatever the hell her real name was, showed me.

So, who could do this sort of thing? Well, I could, along with a couple of thousand other people in the hacker community. The thought popped up…..the government could pull this kind of thing off.

But why would they send someone to spend time with me and check me out? I'm a 'nobody' to them.

Then it dawned on me. Perhaps my earlier sins at Stanford had come back to haunt me.

Perhaps they were suspicious that I might be the person dumping free AI software onto the Internet, for everybody to benefit from.

As the saying goes, '_Paranoia doesn't live far away….it's right around the corner'_.

For the next two hours, I gave free rein to my paranoia. Other questions popped into my mind. Why did Sarah disappear and reappear so often? She told me it was for her work.

Who the hell stole my laptop?

When I reached Valencia, I had plenty of questions and zero answers.

Sarah Wells must have been working for the government.

She had been sent to check me out…..to find out if I was the person responsible for creating the AI code and then giving it away …to the world…..for free. They didn't like it the first time I did it at Stanford and they suspected I'd done it again.

The truth was, of course, that 'I HAD' done it again. However, I was sure I'd covered my tracks.

The nausea in my stomach grew, and I wondered if I might have to pull the car over and puke.

How could I be in love with someone who didn't exist. There was no Sarah Wells.

Most assuredly, the person I loved probably wasn't really into me. Shit, Jeff, Lester and Morgan had been right all along…..the beautiful woman who'd called herself my girlfriend was way, way out of my league.

Lester had confronted me one time at the Buy More. "Chuck, my man….let us not talk about Sarah being out of your league. My, good man… she's out of your Galaxy."

Who'd Sarah work for? FBI, Homeland Security, NSA, CIA, DOD? The honest truth was I'd never know because she'd been correct, we'd never see each other again.

As I got closer to Echo Park, I realized that this was my secret to bear. I couldn't share my suspicions with Ellie, Devon or especially Morgan.

The Piranha could look deeper into the mystery of Sarah Wells. Try to find her, figure out where she worked, who she really was.

I sat in the parked car for another fifteen minutes, my mind tumbling through all the facts.

I was a hamster on a wheel, spinning endlessly and getting nowhere fast. I needed to get off the wheel, and quickly.

Another thought staggered me.

I was still here, apparently safe and sound. No men and women in grey suits and black SUVs had come to take me away. Good, right?

If the government did take my laptop they found nothing of any value on it, zilch.

Sarah's disappearance might have coincided with me no longer being a suspect, but I still needed to keep a low profile.

The Piranha definitely needed to keep a low profile. No more looking, no more sniffing around government databases and no more enquiries into Sarah Wells…..for now.

Now, all I had to do was stop loving someone, who wasn't really….. real, to stop caring for someone who'd lied to me and manipulated me, to stop longing for someone who filled my thoughts day and night.

My emotions over the next two months were so changeable. Moments of white hot anger. How could she have manipulated me? Periods of deep regret that I'd allowed myself to have fallen for another woman who could cast me aside so easily.

I'm pretty sure I went through all the five grief stages, including bargaining, If Sarah came back, I'd confront her and then I'd forgive her….if only she'd come back into my life. Pathetic right?

Finally, I managed to get to the acceptance stage in the grief process.

Be happy for what is.

The government had finally left me alone. Now I had to make sure to not put a stick into the hornet's nest and bang it around.

I guess a person can rationalize just about anything, good things and bad things. You make up a story that allowed you to make some sense about what happened, and then you try to move on.

After all these months, the one question I struggled with…well….. it had no satisfactory answer …

How could you still be in love with someone you never really knew?

**{}**

**A/N2**\- The Gang of Eight is a colloquial term for a set of eight leaders within the United States Congress who are briefed on highly classified intelligence matters by the executive branch. The Gang of Eight includes the leaders of each of the two parties from both the Senate and House of Representatives, and the chairs and ranking minority members of both the Senate Committee and House Committee for intelligence as set forth by 50 U.S.C. § 3093(c)(2).

_I'm not sure if the Gang of Eight are briefed or sign off on all sanctioned killings. _

**A/N3**\- A shout out to some great stories about Chuck helping a battered and bruised Sarah and to shower scenes. _Chuck vs Sunday Afternoon, by JMG 2.0; The point of no return, Mikki13. A Common Spy Problem, KateMck and many, many more. _


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N- **Thank you michaelfmx for editing the story. A thank you to those following this story. This chapter is in the third person. Apologies for the length, longer than my usual efforts.

_Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves - regret for the past and fear of the future. _

-Fulton Oursler

**June 21, 2008- 6862 Estrella Avenue, San Diego**

The tall, striking blonde took one last look back at her mother before getting into the rental car. The baby, Molly, was in her mother's arm. Emma waved a final goodbye with her free hand.

Sarah Walker wasn't a person who lingered when it came to saying goodbyes, she gave a quick wave to both of them before driving away.

Molly was, at last, safe with her mother Emma. From here on in, any contact with her mother and Molly was going to be on a very discrete and limited basis.

She'd killed Kieran Ryker.

He was dead and no longer a threat to the tiny heiress. Sarah had won the 'OK Corral' gunfight, at the little café in Budapest. She was quicker on the draw.

She hit him right between the eyes with a nine millimeter hollow point bullet. Sarah Walker didn't miss a shot from four feet away. He was dead before his body slipped off the chair and hit the ground.

The problem Sarah now had was CIA Director Langston Graham. The CIA was not a big supporter of agents killing their handlers, even if Kieran Ryker was a killer and a traitor.

The greater sin was that she'd lied to the Director of the CIA. _'I don't have the package, I don't know where the package is?' _Why was Graham so interested in a tiny baby?

Budapest had been Sarah Walker's 'Damascus Road' moment.

The consequence of that 'conversion experience' had been a massive disillusionment with the CIA and her life; as opposed to embracing Christianity like the Apostle Paul.

It had taken several weeks for her to safely and anonymously get out of Europe with Molly. Flying under the radar of Interpol, the CIA and three different sets of border crossing guards had required all of her considerable skill and tradecraft.

New, costly, documents had to be prepared, a lot of favors called in.

Sarah had sent several cryptic messages to Director Graham over the last six weeks, telling him she was being pursued by of Kieran Ryker's colleagues. She had to stay off the grid.

Somehow, she'd never been declared 'rogue' by the CIA.

Once she arrived at LAX, she would call Graham and give him a fuller version of her story and then gauge his reaction. She would tell him the truth about Ryker's betrayal and how he'd sent her on an unsanctioned mission. The remainder of her story to him would be carefully crafted, truths, half-truths and lies.

{}

Interstate 5 was moving well, soon she would be back in the 'game'. Sarah would somehow ingratiate herself back into the CIA family, at least until she could fathom a way to get out from under Langston Graham's powerful embrace.

Her eyes had finally been opened about her mentor and boss. Langston Graham had ensured that her hands had been covered in blood, in order for him to better control her. She would no longer be controlled by the likes of him or 'handled' by people like Kieran Ryker.

She had a mother to protect and a new baby sister. Sarah thought about her father, who continued to move from one con to the other. Langston Graham could always use her father as leverage if the need arose.

**{**}

Any time Sarah came anywhere near the Los Angeles area, she thought about Echo Park and about him. She wondered how he was getting on now that he was free from her and the CIA_._ It had almost been a year since she'd completed her mission in Burbank and left him to resume his 'normal' life.

The attraction to Chuck was surprisingly still there. Time was supposed to dim those types of feelings, _'out of sight out of mind'._ Well it wasn't working.

Meeting Chuck had caused bad ripples in her relationship with Bryce. They'd worked together a couple of times since she'd left Burbank. Bryce was surprised and not pleased when she told him that there would be no further 'side benefits' to their professional partnership.

Bryce being Bryce, he kept prodding her for the reason. Had he done something wrong? Had she met someone else? His only answer from her was a stony silence and a cold bed.

_I hope you're well Chuck. _

**{}**

**Back to the Present**

**Santuario de Nossa Senhora da Pendeda, Portugal, July 25, 2009 -1am**

Father Owen Ruelas had counseled hundreds of parishioners over the years. Men, and women, young and old, whose hearts had been broken. Broken hearts were a common occurrence, it was part of the human condition.

Unrequited love was also a very familiar theme, that he had helped his flock come to terms with.

Some folks got over one sided love quickly, others struggled for months, sometime years, but eventually moved on. Sadly, a few people sacrificed their entire future in the vain hope that the 'other person', who hadn't loved them back, would come to their senses, declare their love and come running back to them.

The shocking difference from all those other stories Owen had heard over the years …. was this woman. She'd come into Chuck's life, captured his heart and suddenly left. If he was to believe Chuck's story, Sarah was a spy for the CIA.

Fascinating, a beautiful woman of mystery. 'Sarah Wells', an obviously fake name, had fabricated a web of lies, she'd ensnared her prey, supposedly got what she wanted from Chuck and left him.

Owen looked over at the young man. "Chuck, at first I thought you might be suffering from paranoia, with a side dish of obsessive tendencies. I now wonder if you might just be correct, one of your government's agencies was examining you and your life. You were, indeed, under their microscope."

Slouched in a big, comfortable arm chair and half asleep, Chuck lifted his weary head. "Oh, I have no doubt whatsoever, the CIA thought I was the person dumping AI algorithms onto open source sites."

Guilt tugged at Chuck. He'd only told Father Owen a part of the story, leaving out any mention of the Piranha. He'd outright lied and told Owen that a friend, who was a noted hacker, had done all the internet snooping and online detective work on his behalf.

A little tune played in his head. '_Oh, sinner man where you going to run to…'_

Owen took note of the late hour but had one more question. "Chuck, you said you met this shadowy woman, the blonde spy again?"

"Yes, almost a year ago…..but can we pick up that story in the morning…..I need to get some sleep…."

Owen immediately stood up. "Yes, yes….goodness…where are my manners? Lord, look at the time. Let us talk in the morning. I'll show you where your room is."

**{}**

**Eight Hours Later**

**Santuario de Nossa Senhora da Pendeda, Portugal, July 25, 2009 -9am**

Maria was an excellent cook.

As Father Owen explained to Chuck, "This single virtue, being a wonderful cook, far outweighs her biting tongue, irascible nature and incivilities to visitors and pilgrims alike." Chuck laughed because the breakfast she provided was amazing.

A dreamless night's sleep in a comfortable bed with fresh linen had renewed Chuck.

Everything seemed better now. The sun was shining. For the first time in a year, he felt a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Finally, someone else knew about his story.

He now had an ally of sorts, Father Owen believed Chuck. He could see it in Owen's eyes and body language.

In halting, broken English and rapid fire Portuguese, Maria told both of them to go somewhere else, so she could clean up the breakfast dishes.

Once again they retired to the balcony, at the back of the Church, with the eyrie like view over the valley far below. It was going to be another hot day.

Chuck leaned against the wrought iron balcony railing. Owen was to his right. "So, you met this woman, with the fake name of Sarah, one more time?"

A sigh escaped Chuck's lips. "Yes, the day after my twenty-seventh birthday."

**{}**

**Chuck's Second Meeting with Sarah, Burbank**

**July 26, 2008**

A person would be fortunate indeed to have Ellie Bartowski as their sister.

For Chuck's birthday she had baked a cake, decorated the fountain area and invited fifteen of Devon and her friends to celebrate the occasion.

Morgan was the only friend of Chuck's who was invited. Ellie had little patience with the rest of the Buy More gang.

Chuck and Morgan were plotting several ways to escape his own birthday party, when Ellie surprised him and dragged him out of his room to join the festivities.

Ellie gradually had to face facts, Chuck was not going to be the life of the party. He'd already stumbled through three conversations with eligible pretty women doctors from Westside Medical Center.

After four or five minutes, these poor unsuspecting women acted like animals caught in a leg trap…willing to gnaw their leg off to escape talking with him. Ellie sympathised with them. No woman wanted to hear a long sad tale about a former girlfriend, two former girlfriends, if you counted Sarah Wells.

The time crawled by and finally only Ellie and Chuck were left. The brother and sister sat quietly on the edge of the fountain.

"Chuck, what am I going to do with you? I'm running out of eligible girlfriends and acquaintances to introduce you to."

He gave her an affectionate hug and pulled her close. "Ellie, don't give up on me…things will change for the better. I really appreciate your efforts…hey, the cake was fantastic."

**{}**

Before Chuck got changed and went to bed, he always checked his computer. There were several emails, including an email from Bryce Larkin that instantly caught his attention. An email from Bryce?

He'd not heard a peep from Bryce Larkin. Nothing since Bryce had planted the answers to a test under Chuck's bed at Stanford. _What the hell does he want?_

Through the Stanford alumni grapevine, Chuck had heard about Bryce. He was now an accountant in Washington, DC.

Chuck found that a little hard to believe. Bryce would have had to have an emergency frontal lobotomy in order for him to ever entertain becoming an accountant? For anybody who had ever met Bryce, the idea of him becoming an accountant was unthinkable. Hell, maybe the money was obscenely good.

Chuck clicked on the email.

Instantly, he recognized the game Bryce wanted to play with him….Zork!

Bryce and Chuck, during happier times, had reprogrammed Zork on a TRS-80. Chuck read the prompt…_'You are facing a terrible troll'_. He instantly started thinking of what he had in his Hero's satchel.

His fingers hovered over the keys to enter the best answer, _'Attack troll with nasty knife.'_ A shiver went through his body and he froze.

Chuck didn't quite hate Bryce for what he'd done, strongly dislike….oh yes!

He hadn't heard word one from Bryce Larkin since he'd left Stanford in disgrace. No email, no letter, no phone call explaining why he'd accused Chuck of cheating. Chuck had his suspicions why Bryce had done what he'd done. Bryce Larkin and the CIA were the authors of Chuck's misfortune.

Chuck looked back on a five-year tailspin that he'd just recently managed to pull out from, just before he crashed to the ground.

Wasn't life hilarious, he thought. The reason he'd pulled out of his Jill Roberts' tailspin was because Sarah Wells came into his life…..then left. Now he was dealing with a Sarah Wells' tailspin. _Brilliant, way to go Chuck_

Chuck's fingers were still poised over the keyboard.

So now, after all this time, Mr. 'Stab you in the back', Larkin, finally reached out to him with an email and wanted to play a game of 'Zork', for old times' sake.

The words escaped his lips. "To Hell with you Bryce!"

Chuck hit the delete button on his email, shut off his computer and went into the bathroom.

**{}**

**July 27, 2008- 9pm**

It had been a long dreary day at the Buy More; different faces but the same types of problems. Jeff and Lester had been at their best, or worst depending on your perspective. Morgan and Anna were 'off' at the moment, in their on and off again romance. Big Mike had spent the entire day in his office, while Chuck made sure the Buy More didn't descend into chaos.

He trudged through the courtyard, past the fountain and opened the door to an empty apartment. Ellie and Devon were on call all night at the hospital.

He was a year older, and no wiser, with exactly five hundred and sixty-two dollars in his bank account. Something had to change, the thought of another year at the Buy More felt like it was a prison sentence.

He threw the keys for the Nerd mobile into the little wooden bowl on the marble countertop.

Watching some TV was a possibility. He just couldn't generate any real enthusiasm to switch the TV on and shuffled down the hall.

What he really wanted to do was listen to some of his vinyl collection, which would lighten his mood, maybe even cause a spark of inspiration. Maybe, as he lay there on his bed, with his eyes closed and his head on the pillow, he'd glimpse a possible and brighter future.

He opened the door to his room; his hand reaching to switch the lights on.

"Chuck, close the door and come in." He slammed the door shut and swung around towards the sound of the voice; just as the little lamp on his desk switched on.

"Sarah!"

Sitting beside his desk, in his captain's chair, was none other than Sarah Wells, or whatever her real name was.

The shock of seeing her caused him to suck in his breath. He stared at her. She was wearing black pants with several pockets, a black turtleneck and black sneakers.

Her blonde hair was pulled back into a severe pony tail. The blackness of her clothes seemed to mirror her mood. Her dark blue eyes gave off no warmth that he could detect.

Finally, his tongue started to work.

"Of course….. we both know your name isn't really….. Sarah….. is it?"

Sarah hid her surprise when he hurled his accusation at her. "Actually, my name is Sarah…"

There was that alto voice, he'd missed hearing it. "Really? Ok, but your last name sure as hell isn't Wells?" He was angry now.

What the hell was she doing here in his room, dressed like a blonde ninja warrior? The shock fully returned when he saw the gun resting on top of his desk beside his computer.

She'd tracked his eyes as he noticed the gun. Good! She didn't have a lot of time, she needed to move him past his anger; there was no time for those types of feelings.

"Chuck, did you get an email from Bryce Larkin yesterday?"

"Why do you have a gun?"

Sarah's first question finally registered with him, "What! Bryce Larkin?….How the hell do you know about the email from Bryce?"

Sarah slowly asked the question again, even though she and Chuck were running out of time. "Chuck, this is important…. what did you do with the email Bryce sent you last night?"

Chuck's shock and confusion mingled with his rising anger, caused him to shout at her, "You know what, I think it's time for you to just freaking get out, please leave."

Sarah didn't move, she looked at him with a steady gaze. His anger washed over her with no visible effect.

In the dim light from his desk lamp, with her black clothes, she reminded Chuck of a panther, poised to strike. He had no idea who this person sitting in front of him was. What the hell was going on here?

The primal impulse that allowed our ancestors to avoid being eaten by the saber tooth tiger kicked in. What would it be, flight, fight or freeze. He chose flight.

"You know what…..I'll leave. When I get back, hopefully you'll have disappeared again….you're really good at that."

Chuck turned his back on her, walked to the door and reached for the door handle.

"Chuck….don't go out in the hall." Her warning sent a chill through him. He really needed to get away from this woman.

He'd just started to turn the handle when a knife 'thwacked' into the side jam of the door frame, six inches from his hand.

Chuck pivoted around. "Are you fucking crazy…."

Sarah needed him to listen to her. She raised her voice. "Bryce is dead!"

Chuck's anger vanished. He slumped down onto the corner of his bed. "What….but he sent me the email just last night?"

"Chuck, there's an NSA agent coming here, to this house, to your bedroom. The agent's name is John Casey, he's an assassin. He's the man who killed Bryce Larkin, last night."

None of this was making any sort of sense to Chuck. "Why would the NSA want to kill an accountant?"

"Bryce Larkin wasn't an accountant. He was a spy for the CIA, we were partners for two years. He went rogue two months ago, he disappeared. Last night, he stole privileged, eyes only, top secret information from the NSA. And to make matters worse, he blew up their secret computer room. Just before he died ….he sent all those secrets to you."

Sarah repeated her earlier question and said the words slowly because he was still in shock. "What did... you… do…with….the….email?"

Chuck put his head into his hands and groaned.

Sarah let him have a moment. She also needed to take a breath and calm herself.

Casey could show up at any moment, he'd landed at the same time as her. Fortunately for Chuck, Casey had landed at Edwards Air Force Base in a military jet, whereas she'd landed at LAX.

Graham was furious with Bryce for betraying the agency. The embarrassment Bryce caused the Director and the CIA, within the intelligence community, was grave.

Sarah had been headed to Miami on a CIA Gulfstream V, when he'd called her while she was at 40,000ft.

The pilot had been instructed to head for Los Angeles. The mission brief was cryptic, stay ahead of John Casey, secure the Intersect data and clean up the operation, if necessary.

Graham's final instruction over the phone to her was, "If Bartwoski tries to run, kill him."

Chuck looked up at Sarah. "Why are you here?"

"Chuck, I'm trying to save your life, but you need to help me in order to do that."

Suddenly, Chuck felt exhausted from the emotional roller coaster he was on. "I deleted the email…..I got rid of it."

"Show me."

Sarah picked up her gun, moved from the chair so Chuck could sit down and get into his computer.

For several seconds he did nothing, just sat in front of the monitor frozen. Sarah was standing very close to him, looking over his left shoulder.

God she smelled great. It was the shampoo she used, a lemony smell, with juniper. He remembered the scent like it was yesterday. How could he ever forget it after showering with her? How many times had he relived that particular moment?

"Chuck…Chuck….please …show me." Her voice was soft but urgent.

He snapped out of his dwam, and entered his complicated password.

He then did something so that, at the bottom of the screen, a command line appeared. He went to his root directory and an audit log. The audit log contained details showing he'd deleted the email.

Sarah started talking into the thin air. Chuck's first thought was that Sarah had indeed gone mad.

He turned his head to look at her. She was talking to someone named Brett. When she touched her ear Chuck figured out she was using an earbud to communicate with the mysterious Brett.

She read off Chuck's IP address to Brett and told Chuck to sit back.

An icon appeared on the screen. Sarah leaned forward and clicked on the icon. Chuck knew that Brett now had full control of his computer.

He could follow exactly what Brett was doing as the monitor flickered and instructions were quickly keyed in. Chuck's first thought was that this guy was pretty good because Brett was doing exactly what he would've done.

Brett was making sure that the email had been deleted, that it had not been copied, downloaded or forwarded to another IP address.

Sarah's tone was one of relief. "Great, so he's telling the truth….he deleted it."

She grabbed her cell and made a call.

Chuck only heard Sarah's side of the conversation.

"Yes, Brett confirms Bartowski deleted the email….." Sarah then listened for several seconds to the person on the other end.

"Sir, Bryce was capable of deleting the email copy that was sitting on the Internet Service Provider….but Brett will check that out and confirm whether it still exists. I can absolutely confirm that he does not have the Intersect data…he knows nothing."

"Sir, can you contact General Beckman and have her call off Agent Casey….yes…..I know…Casey's dangerous. I'll finish up here."

Sarah finished the call and wearily sat down on Chuck's bed with the gun resting on her lap.

Chuck looked over at a person he'd never really met. "So, you're going ….to finish up here….what exactly does that mean?"

For the first time, Sarah was able to let down her guard a fraction. She ignored his question.

"Can I ask another question?" Those big brown eyes were looking at her.

"Sure."

"Why did Bryce, whom I've not seen or heard from in five years, send me this Intersect secret, whatever the hell it is?"

"Chuck, I honestly don't know….maybe because he knew you weren't associated with any of the intelligence agencies…... I knew you wouldn't be conspiring with Bryce, but the CIA and NSA didn't know that."

They heard the tiny squeak of the floorboard in the hallway.

Sarah grabbed Chuck and pushed him into the closet and put her finger to her lips. She took a combat stance and called out. "Agent Casey, this is Agent Walker….. I'm here with Bartowski, he does not have the Intersect…I repeat, he does not have it…..stand down."

There was a long, long silence.

"Agent Casey, call Beckman… she'll tell you we've already confirmed he deleted the email. The CIA has proved he did not pass it on."

From the other side of the door came a gruff response. "This is an NSA operation. What the hell is a CIA skirt doing here."

"Making sure you don't kill an innocent man. Call Beckman before I lose my patience and just come out there and kill you…. and be done with it."

"You wish, Agent Walker…you wish."

Five minutes ticked by very slowly. Sarah made sure the window was locked and then pulled out two spare magazines from one of the pockets in her pants and laid them on the bed.

There was a soft tap on the bedroom door. "All right Walker, I've decided not to kill you and your pet monkey. General Beckman wants to know what he saw. The question she's asked is …. did he look at any of the data."

Sarah's response was terse. "I just told you we checked… that's a negative."

Casey made no effort to hide his disdain. "Well, if it's alright with you, Agent Walker, my boss, Brigadier General Beckman, who outranks you, with your kind, 'fucking permission of course'..….wants me to make sure. We have a test he needs to take."

Sarah's phone buzzed. It was a text from Graham. 'You need to work with Casey!"

She threw the phone down on the bed in disgust. "Alright, Agent Casey come in …..Slowly."

Chuck's first sight of John Casey made an indelible impression. The NSA agent was a cross between the Hulk and GI Joe. The gun he was carrying seemed to be a natural extension of the man; Casey was a scary man, indeed.

However, what surprised Chuck was that Casey was extremely wary of Sarah. The two agents weren't aiming their guns at each other, but Chuck knew that state of affairs could change in the blink of an eye.

"Tell me about the test." Sarah positioned herself so she was standing in front of Chuck.

"Don't worry Agent Walker, your boy toy won't feel a thing." He slowly reached into a pocket and pulled out a card deck.

"All, he has to do is look at these cards while I video him with my phone." Casey looked over at Chuck. "Do you think you can manage to do that moron?"

Chuck knew he'd fallen down the rabbit hole. The only people missing from this lovely little scene were the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts and maybe Alice herself.

Certainly John Casey was a man you treaded lightly around…..but… calling him a moron, really?

Chuck found sufficient courage to respond. "Actually, I'm a member of Mensa. Last time I checked, they don't admit moron's….Are you a member of Mensa… Agent Casey?"

The big man grunted. "Walker, he needs to sit down over there."

Before the test started, there was a brief negotiation about what to do with their guns. Slowly both agents put their guns away. Casey slipped his gun into his shoulder holster. Sarah, put hers into a pancake holster on the back of her tactical pants.

It took a minute to get the test set up.

Sarah agreed to show the cards to Chuck while Casey videoed Chuck with his phone.

Chuck called out the cards that Sarah flashed in front of him.

"Dog….Hippo….Building…Woman….Rose…Pumpkin…..Fish….."

It was monotonous. Chuck was over the initial shock of the last ten minutes, but was still way north of nervous.

He started talking. "Do you want me to do some kind of word association….You know like…..I see the card, Dog….and I say man's best friend. Or, I see a picture of a Rose and I say….symbol of love and affection…."

He got two withering looks.

The test was completed in under four minutes. Casey sent the video he took on his phone to the NSA.

Both agents went to a neutral corner and waited.

Chuck was left sitting in his Captain's chair. He couldn't stand the stony silence any longer. "So, ahh, the two of you know each other, professionally? Personally? You go to the same book club…work out at the same gym... uhhh, go to the same gun shop….perhaps?"

Casey grunted, while Sarah gave him a quick glance. Chuck might've imagined it, but was that a tiny smile from her?

Casey's phone rang ten minutes later. "Yes, ma'am…..I agree. He knows nothing…I'll give him a warning."

Casey smiled, or was it a grimace. "Well, Bartowski, the best thing you ever did in your dead end life was deleting that email. You are ordered not to talk about what happened here tonight….with anyone."

Chuck wondered how Casey could order him to do something but decided he'd keep that little thought to himself.

Casey turned to Sarah. "Agent Walker, good to put a face to the name, I have a feeling our paths will cross again."

Sarah gave him a slight nod. "Agent Casey."

As Casey was leaving, Chuck couldn't resist. "Agent Casey, make sure you shut the front door on your way out." When Chuck thought Casey was well out of earshot, he mumbled….." And don't let the door hit you on the ass as you leave."

**{}**

They heard the front door slam shut. Sarah sat down on the bed near Chuck and finally relaxed.

Chuck's stress and fear levels were dropping quickly. Earlier there had been several moments where he felt as if he'd been on the edge of a dark abyss. It was a dark feeling that came and went, with him having no understanding of why he felt that way.

Having Sarah sitting, near him, on his bed and in his room, reminded him of happier times.

He snorted. _'Yeah, real happy times as I was being lied to and manipulated'_.

He was back in touch with his anger.

"So, Agent Walker, could you explain to me what the hell just happened here?"

Sarah moved her head around in an attempt to ease the tension out of her neck and shoulders.

Chuck still had no clue how close he'd come to being stuck in a bunker, at best; or the worst outcome, being dumped into an unmarked grave, courtesy of the NSA and Agent John Casey.

"Bryce stole the NSA and CIA's most sensitive secrets and sent them to you in that email. If you'd downloaded them or passed them onto to someone else, you most likely would've ended up dead. Best case scenario, you would've never seen the natural light of day ever again."

The silence grew second by second. Neither person knew what to say next.

Chuck had to ask. "Were you here to recover the Intersect first, you know, so the CIA could beat the NSA."

His ability to get to the heart of the matter quickly was impressive.

She liked that about him, what a wonderful mind he had. "My boss sent me to recover the Intersect. His agenda was to get the Intersect data first.

"My personal reason for being here was to make sure Casey didn't kill you and if necessary, if you had opened the email….… to help you disappear."

Chuck was very nervous again. He leaned forward. "What does…. 'disappear' mean….is that like the Mafia….helps you disappear, you know, food for the fishes?"

Sarah was shocked and spoke almost in a whisper. "No. Not you, never."

She looked over at him. "If it came to it, I was going to help you hide from our government. It would be a lonely existence for you, hiding all the time….. but you'd at least be alive."

For the first time, Chuck believed Sarah had said something utterly true to him. She really had come to keep him safe. After meeting John Casey, he knew he'd needed this Guardian Angel to keep him safe.

Chuck stood up and went to open the door. He looked over at the knife sticking into the door frame. "Don't forget your knife. I need a coffee, would you like one."

Sarah followed him out to the kitchen, stopping briefly to retrieve her throwing knife. "Do you have anything a little stronger….I could use a drink."

Chuck fortified their coffee with a splash of cognac. Sarah indicated with her hand to put some more cognac in her cup.

They sipped their coffee and cognac, letting the adrenaline wash out of their bodies. They looked at each other, trying to figure out what the other person was thinking; but not revealing their thoughts by actually speaking.

Sarah felt she needed to go first. "I wish we'd met in another way, but we didn't. A river only runs one way, just like time."

He smiled at her, "It depends on where the river is. During Hurricane Isaac, the Mississippi river flowed backwards for a whole day."

Sarah laughed. "Trust you to know that bizarre fact. But we can't turn the clock back on us. I'm sorry for lying to you about who I am….for stealing your computer."

Chuck shook his head slowly. "So, it was you." He paused. "I don't suppose you still have the number 1 Fantastic Four comic book?"

She reached out with her hand and touched his arm. "Sorry Chuck, the other items I took were put into a dumpster…..I didn't know, until afterwards, what the comic book meant to you."

They lapsed into a long silence.

She finished her coffee, stood up and put out her hand. It hovered in midair for a couple of seconds. Chuck reached out and grabbed it. "Chuck, the last time we parted, I thought we'd never see each other again. Who knows, we might see each other again, unlikely but….."

Sarah wanted to hug him but knew she couldn't, not as she was about to leave him again.

Chuck didn't want her to leave but he didn't know how to make her stay. An idea popped into his head and a smile appeared on his face.

He was still holding onto her warm hand. He moved one step closer towards her. "Sarah, are you familiar with the 'Inverse Square Law' for gravity?"

Sarah's blue eyes seemed to light up. A smile played at the corners of her mouth.

Chuck continued his impromptu Physics lesson. "So, if I take another step closer to you….the attraction between the two bodies goes up by the square of the reduced distance."

She was smiling now and took a half step towards him. "That would mean that the two bodies after a certain point, call it a point of no return, couldn't help but collide….I mean….how could they resist each other? "

Chuck's body was now a fraction away from touching her. "I can see, 'Padawan', that the force is strong in you…" He never got the chance to finish his words before his head was grabbed by two warm hands.

Sarah was on her tip toes, to get the best angle to kiss him. When his big hand found the small of her back to pull her closer into him, she moaned. The intensity of the kiss swept away any further logical thought by either of them.

The two of them made it only as far as the couch. Sarah's gun and knifes fell onto the carpet, clothes were almost ripped off of each other.

Chuck's physics 101 lesson had been prophetic.

The foretold collision between the bodies occurred. The forces unleashed by the collision wiped out all restraints, sense of time and surroundings.

**{}**

**Later**

They eventually found their way to Chuck's bed.

The second time they made love lacked the urgency of their first collision. The laws of physics, however, were still firmly in place. Her attraction to Chuck Bartowski was like nothing she'd ever experienced. The power of her attraction to him shocked her.

The need to touch him, to kiss him, to sculpt her body to perfectly match his body, was irresistible.

Afterwards, they both drifted off to sleep.

When Chuck woke up, it was still dark. He was on his right side, with an arm wrapped around his waist. Sarah's naked body was snuggled up close and he felt her hair on his bare shoulder.

"Good, you're finally awake." Her tone was playful.

"Have you had any sleep?" His concern warmed her.

"Some….a good sleep, no dreams. But we do need to talk."

"What time is it?"

"I have no idea….oh, ahhh, its four am."

They shifted their bodies so they could sit up with their backs supported by pillows. There was enough ambient light that he could see her face. Her tousled blonde hair was a beautiful wreath that framed her face.

"I don't think I'm going to like this talk…am I?" He couldn't keep the sadness from his voice.

"Chuck, I have to leave in a couple of hours. I'm compelled by circumstances to become a spy again." She was weighing each word carefully. There was so much to say to him and so much she couldn't say to him.

"My boss, the Director of the CIA, Langston Graham, is a very powerful man. He can also be ruthless if he feels his power is being threatened in any way. I'm keeping several secrets from him, which must be kept. People I love need to be protected from him."

He had no clue what to say to that kind of statement? "I get the feeling that you leaving me again is somehow connected with those secrets and your boss, Graham."

_Good boy Chuck, I know you could read between the lines_. "Chuck, I need to do my job perfectly. As long as Graham is alive, I need him to believe that I'm loyal and will carry out my orders, I can't afford to arouse his suspicions."

Chuck hated what was coming next. "So, keeping in touch with me would be….."

"Dangerous. Remember Chuck, twice now you've been in their crosshairs. If he got the slightest inkling that you and I were together, he'd question everything that has happened between us.

"He'd wonder how long I'd been compromised. Had I helped you to deceive the CIA and him…."

Chuck was angry. "Surely, if we're careful then …."

"Chuck, it's not just about you and me, if it was, I'd take on the risk…..…..that's all I can say….other lives would be jeopardised….."

It took a couple of minutes to absorb what this meant for him, for them. "Will, I ever see you again?

She shrugged her shoulders, her words caught in her throat. Sarah didn't trust herself to speak.

Finally, she had her emotions under control. "Leave it this way….I'll find you. Please, please don't try to find me because, unwittingly, you might just hurt me and other people."

"Well, you can't stop me from thinking about you….you can't stop me from loving you."

Sarah put her hand on his bare chest. "If you meet someone else, don't wait…..I'll understand…."

Chuck shook his head. "Don't talk nonsense….."

Sarah needed to say this to him. "Chuck, you're in love with the tip of an iceberg….that's my nickname in the CIA, the 'Ice Queen', with good reason. All the nasty pieces of me are hidden from you."

The depressing thought that sprung up was; _if he ever knew the truth about me_,_ he'd pull his scalded chest from my hand forever_.

They made love one more time. Both of them wanted to stretch the moments, so that they wouldn't end...

Sarah, true to her word, dressed quickly as the first light of dawn spilled into the bedroom. She gave him a final kiss and hug and left him.

**{}**

**A/N2**\- _I've had Bryce stealing the Intersect, and sending it to Chuck in 2008 and not September of 2007._

**A/N3**\- I'm grateful to Wvonb. In his story, _Second Chances,_ Sarah kills Ryker at the café in Budapest. For her to only wound him, while sitting across the table, as portrayed in Canon, is simply ludicrous.

**A/N4**\- I can finish this story in another three chapters or go for the full twelve chapters. I'll try to gauge the interest level.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

A/N- The unofficial poll has been tallied and we will go for the 12 chapters as initially planned. Thank you for reading, reviews and PMs. Michaelfmx, merci.

_"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them." – Ernest Hemingway_

**The Past**

**March 16, 2009- Article In the Washington Post**

_CIA Director Dies in Accident._

_Lothian Woods, Maryland_

_Tragedy struck yesterday, on the Ides of March. An accident occurred three miles from the sleepy little town of Lothian Woods, home of the Canola Agricultural Research Station. The Research Station is beside the Patuxent River. The Director of the CIA, Langston Graham, along with six other Federal employees, perished in a fiery explosion. The investigation is ongoing, but early indications, from senior officials, are that it was a natural gas explosion. Unnamed sources have mentioned that the pipeline into the building was over forty years old, in need of repair, and possibly the cause of the explosion._

_The White House has announced that Ms. Gayle Finny will be named as the interim Director of the CIA. Ms. Finny has been with the CIA for twenty-five years and is a respected member of the Intelligence Community. Ms. Finny has gathered early bipartisan support from the Senate and the House._

**{}**

**Back to the Present**

**Santuario de Nossa Senhora da Pendeda, Portugal, July 25, 2009- Morning**

Father Owen Ruelas could spot a liar a kilometer away.

Years of hearing confessions, dealing with saints and sinners alike, had given him an awesome bullshit detector. Chuck Bartowski had obviously left out certain parts of the story, especially intimate details with the spy, whose name this time around was Sarah Walker. Everyone edited the story they told to a priest, he expected that.

However, he'd detected no fabrications, lies or self-serving falsehoods.

Chuck Bartowski seemed to be an ordinary man, who somehow kept brushing up against extraordinary people and events. The young man in front of him was a survivor.

His mother, father and fiancé had first loved him, then abandoned him. It was only to be expected that he was weighed down by life, mildly depressed. Life had beaten him up but he was not defeated.

The Priest would remember Chuck daily in his prayers.

Chuck wished he could stay longer with the Franciscan Priest. "Thank you Father, for listening to my story…I'm not sure how you got me to open up. Funny, I feel better for having shared it with someone."

Worry crossed his face. "You do understand, Father, that I may have placed you at risk…I mean, telling you about the CIA, the Intersect, whatever the hell it is. Needless to say, it's probably best for your future health that you never repeat any of what I've told you."

Owen stood up and touched the side of his head. "I have many secrets up here. As I promised you earlier, your story will be known only to you, me and God."

Chuck's mind was now turning to the task of how to get back to Lisbon. He had a twenty-five kilometer hike in front of him. "Father, I'd better grab my backpack and be off, it's a long walk back to where I can catch a bus."

Owen shook his head. "Nonsense, Maria's husband Victor is driving to Porto at noon. He'll take you there and you can catch the train to Lisbon. If the train is on time, you should be back in Lisbon by 5pm."

**{}**

Chuck stuffed his water bottle into his back pack and returned to the back of the Church.

Maria was waving her finger and berating her browbeaten husband Victor, as he stood beside a yellow Renault Kangoo Van. Victor merely shrugged his shoulders, his wife's words were like water to a duck's back, they appeared to roll off him with little affect.

Father Owen rushed out the back door of the Church to say his goodbyes. "Blessings to you Chuck Bartowski. You've shared a most interesting story that will stay with me for many days, maybe years to come."

Father Owen opened his arms and Chuck moved forward to give him a hug.

Chuck spoke quietly into Owen's ear. "Funny thing Father, it wasn't enjoyable for me to tell you my story, but I do feel better for having done it. You're a wise man."

After they ended the hug, Chuck had one more question. "The Vatican is a different place now than it was eighteen years ago. Do you think Pope Benedict might be open to an appeal from you about the injustices done to you?"

Father Owen shook his head. "The Holy Father is a conservative, a keeper of the status quo. Besides, I have no evidence to support my case, best to leave sleeping Vatican dogs lie."

Maria's husband Victor spoke very little English, it was going to be a quiet two hour ride to Porto. Chuck wondered how he might be help Father Owen clear his name at the Vatican.

**{}**

**Same Day**

**Train Station- 'Oriente', Lisbon, Portugal, July 25, 2009, 5:30pm**

The two other members of her watch team, made up of an MI6 and a Mossad agent, were still in touch with the movements of Faidi.

Sarah still had no idea where he was going to have his meeting.

At the moment the satellites, drones and their loose surveillance, showed him driving around in what appeared to be aimless circles and then a series of right turns. Faidi was trained in counter surveillance, along with his other deadly skill of making bombs.

Great care had to be taken to monitor him without being seen.

Thus far, Faidi believed he wasn't under surveillance. Sarah dearly wanted to make sure that nothing happened to change his mind.

Sarah and her team wondered if the 'bomb maker' might have a counter surveillance team in place.

She looked over at the passenger seat; she was about to drop off her other team member, Agent John Casey, NSA, to pick up a rental car at the train station.

The Intelligence bosses had handpicked the agents they wanted on this mission. The bosses were the chess grandmasters, the agents were the pieces they moved around the great 'game' board.

At their first meeting with the MI6 and the Mossad agent, both American agents had been low key and professional.

No mention was made of their earlier meeting in Burbank or of Chuck Irving Bartowski.

Sarah was, surprisingly, enjoying working with Casey. The 'Major' was an interesting mixture of sarcasm, professionalism and a pure love of the hunt.

Because Casey was a professional, he'd blended into the watch team easily. John Casey had been doing the job for decades and it showed. He had great ideas about how to observe Faidi and not be seen.

Another plus was that Casey and the MI6 Agent, Cole Barker, worked well together. Not surprising given they'd both come from the military and then into the spy world.

They'd just passed the train station when Casey swivelled his head. "What the hell is he doing here?" Sarah was concentrating on the chaotic traffic in front of her and couldn't look. "Who?"

"Chuck Bartowski." Casey looked over at Sarah. "What's your boy toy doing over in Lisbon? Are the two of you together?

Walker, did you fly him in for some R&R later?"

The Renault Clio swerved just a fraction to the left as Sarah reacted to the news Chuck was in Lisbon. She fought like mad not to slow the car, turn her head to the right and try to spot Chuck walking on the sidewalk. Casey watched Sarah like a hawk to gauge her reactions.

Sarah was still getting over the shock that Chuck was here, especially now. "Don't be a horse's ass Casey. I resent your question. I haven't seen Chuck Bartowski since that night in Burbank. You know, when you wanted to kill an innocent man."

Casey snapped back his answer. "I was doing my job Walker. Let me remind you that it was your ex-partner, Larkin, who set the moron up for an early death."

Casey grunted and took his phone out of his jacket. He hit a speed dial number and contacted the NSA. John Casey didn't believe in coincidences.

Sarah followed Casey's side of the conversation. He told the NSA analyst to find out about Bartowski's travels in the last five months.

Casey ticked off his checklist to the analysts. "Check airlines, trains, buses and rental car companies in and out of Portugal for the past month. Tell me when he booked his tickets and where the hell he's going next. Oh, yeah, and who the hell he might be travelling with…."

Casey, looked over at Sarah. "Anything else, we should check, Agent Walker?"

Sarah sighed. "You might as well check all his phone calls for the last year and cross reference that against any phone numbers for Faidi and associates."

Casey passed the question to the analyst and put his phone away.

Sarah knew deep down that nothing would show up.

**{}**

**Forty-five Minutes Later**

Casey was now five cars behind Sarah's car, he was in a rented silver Peugeot 208.

Cole Barker was parked half a kilometer away in a rented Volkswagen Jetta. The female Mossad agent, Marisa, would soon join Sarah in her brown Renault Clio.

Sarah's phone rang, it was Casey.

His tone was gruff as usual. "When do you think Faidi knew he was coming to Lisbon?"

"Maybe two months ago, tops." Sarah knew Mossad had been tipped off seven weeks ago that Faidi was coming to Lisbon.

"My analysts have told me Bartowski, his sister and her fiancé booked to go to this medical conference in Lisbon four months ago. They used points on an Amex card to get Bartowski over here. The three of them are staying at the Tivoli Hotel. Oh, yeah, our computers came up with zilch on any links with his phone calls and any suspected terrorists."

Sarah took a deep breath. "I'm not surprised, so are we calling this a coincidence?" She could hear Casey breathing.

"So, you haven't' had any contact with Bartwoski, since Burbank….No quick flights out there for a booty call?" Casey was still suspicious.

"Casey, are you calling me a liar? Question asked and already answered." Sarah was pissed with him.

She repeated her question. "Agent Casey, are…you…..calling ….this ….a… coincidence?"

"Yeah." Casey was satisfied that Bartowski's presence here in Lisbon was a fluke.

Sarah had one more question. "Where's he headed next?" She tried to keep her tone neutral.

Casey still wondered what kind of connection Walker might have with Bartowski. "He's going to Paris in two days for a week and then back to his boring life in Burbank. Can we get back to the task at hand?"

**{}**

**Alfama District, Lisbon, Portugal, July 25, 2009, 7:30pm**

Sarah parked the Renault two hundred meters from the café where Faidi and the cell leader from Frankfurt were meeting. Marisa Velo, the Mossad agent, sat quietly in the passenger seat.

Faidi had finally stopped driving, after almost an hour of twists and turns. He'd led them to this place, in the Alfama district of Lisbon. Alfama was the oldest part of the city.

It was once the heart of the old Moorish town that sat on the Tagus River in 711 AD. The Castelo de S. Jorge, an old Moorish castle sat high up on the hill.

They hadn't followed Faidi too closely and had stayed a kilometer behind him, fearing a counter surveillance team might spot them if they weren't careful.

Sarah and her team placed a heavy reliance on the drones and satellites to track Faidi's car.

The bomb maker and his two body guards stopped at a small café called the Mercearia Castello Cafe.

He'd made an excellent choice for the meeting. The café was at the apex, where three busy roads met. There was a small plaza across from the outdoor café, with a little park to the right.

Faidi's table was situated in the shade, in a perfect blind spot. There were no CCTV cameras. He wore a black baseball cap to hide most of his face. His two body guards sat at two different tables to track people coming and going.

The cell leader from Frankfurt turned out to be a woman. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a tight bun. A grey colored floppy sun hat hid her face.

The noise from the cars and the crowded cafe prevented Sarah from using an omni-directional microphone. The directional microphone wouldn't work today because of the blustery winds coming off the Tagus river. Sometimes you couldn't catch a break.

The Team still needed to somehow listen in on the conversation; Sarah still needed to get some close up photos of both of the terrorists.

She looked over at her Mossad team member.

The remarkable thing about Marisa Velo, beside her fluent Portuguese and local knowledge of Lisbon, was how truly unremarkable she was.

Marisa had brown mousy hair, brown eyes and might reach five foot six inches, standing on her tip toes. Marisa was the gold standard for an average looking person.

If you met Marisa, you might just struggle to remember her face or anything else about her thirty seconds later. She was a perfect 'face in the crowd', kind of spy.

Her family had immigrated to Israel when she was ten years old.

Marisa had excelled at all aspects of being a soldier during her compulsory military service in the IDF. She'd stayed in the IDF after her two years were up. She'd asked to be assigned to the 33rd "Caracal" Battalion, an Israeli combat battalion made up of seventy per cent women.

The Mossad noticed Marisa seven months later. She was seconded to the 'Office' and had been carrying out missions in Portugal and Spain for the last three years.

Marisa was a skilled spy who operated best in the shadows.

The plan was coming together, on the fly. It couldn't be helped since they hadn't known where Faidi was going to meet the cell leader.

John Casey and Cole Barker were close by, parked on parallel streets. Sarah contacted Casey and Barker on their encrypted tactical net, courtesy of the NSA.

Marisa had come up with the initial plan five minutes ago. Sarah, Casey and Barker made suggestions to refine the plan. Five minutes later they were ready to execute.

None of them liked the idea of doing things on the fly, to be in reaction mode.

Meticulous planning and rehearsing an operation, over and over again, was the way you guaranteed success. But sometimes you just had to react to the situation and hope your training and lady luck would make it alright.

**{}**

Faidi was talking very quietly with the blonde woman, about an operation to take place in Frankfurt in November. Faidi's head was angled downward, but he was still hyper vigilant about his surroundings, as were his body guards.

_One day after the meeting the BND identified the blonde as Erica Amstutz, a thirty-year old law student who had dropped out of her courses at Goethe University Frankfurt. Over a three year period, she'd become radicalized._

_The BND subsequently prepared a detailed file on Erica, which they shared with their allies._

_Under another name, and with forged papers, she'd made a trip to Sukkariyeh in eastern Syria to complete her training, before resuming her life in Frankfurt as Erica Amstutz._

Up until now, Erica had flown under the radar of the BND's radar, Federal Intelligence Service and MAD, Military Counterintelligence Service and every other western intelligence organization.

**{}**

The silver Peugeot stopped suddenly because it had missed a tight turn to the left.

The other car was too close to the Peugeot. The red Volkswagen Jetta's right bumper and light smashed into the left bumper and taillight of the Peugeot.

Everyone heard the breaking of glass, the sounds of a fender bender. The accident occurred thirty meters away from Faidi's table.

People's reaction to a car crash and the sudden noise was instinctual. The Team was depending on this aspect of human nature for their plan to have any chance to succeed.

Faidi raised his head, his body guards looked towards the crash and half rose from their chairs. Their hands were inside their jackets, touching their guns.

Sarah had positioned herself behind a tree, twenty meters beyond where the car accident happened. To all who cared to look at her, she was a tourist taking innocent photos of buildings and, people. Now a car accident seemed to be her focus.

She was already positioned for the split second Faidi raised his head after he heard the crash. Sarah captured the detailed images of his face on the D3 Nikon with the 300mm lens. She also was able to get some excellent head-shots of the blonde woman.

Marisa timed her approach to move past Faidi's table for the exact moment the crash occurred. Everyone was looking at the accident as her hand brushed against the rim of the wrought iron table and planted the small listening device. She melted into the background.

One of the guards glanced at Marisa as she passed by him, but instantly dismissed the small, plain, average looking woman as no threat.

Casey got out of the car to assess the damage. Cole Barker got out of his car, seconds later.

Cole immediately shouted at Casey calling him a 'bloody arsehole' for stopping so quickly.

Casey spoke passable Chechen from his time in the country. Ilsa Trinchina, a photographer and past lover, who died in an explosion, taught him the language.

Casey yelled and swore at Cole in Chechen and broken English. He stepped into Cole's space and kept poking him in the chest with his finger.

Cole played the furious 'Scot' perfectly. This little play that Casey and Cole had cooked up went on for a full two minutes. Everyone watching was expectantly waiting for one or other of the men to take a swing at the other one.

The anticipation of a fight between the two big men was slightly thrilling to the people gathered on the side walk.

Sarah was nervous that Faidi might just flee, even though it was a simple fender bender. She kept muttering to herself, 'Don't overplay it Casey, move on guys.'

Cole abruptly stopped arguing. He pulled out his wallet and shoved a wad full of Euro's into Casey's hand, returned to his car and drove away. As he drove past Casey, he gave him the finger.

Casey never stopped grumbling and complaining in Chechen, even as he got into his car. He drove away quickly leaving a trail of broken glass from his busted taillight.

Faidi looked nervously at his bodyguards. They shrugged their shoulders, waiting for Faidi to make a decision.

Sarah held her breath, would he stay or would he go. Slowly, Faidi lowered himself back into his chair.

Erica, Faidi and the two bodyguards sipped their espressos. The minutes ticked by slowly as they nervously glanced all around them. Sarah was reminded of gazelles, on the Serengeti, lifting their heads, sniffing the breezes for the merest scent of the lions.

When Faidi and the blonde woman finally started talking, their heads were once again bent down and close together. They talked just above a whisper. The NSA captured the conversation and passed it along, with the photos Sarah had taken, to the CIA, MI6 and Mossad.

Sarah and Marisa met behind the little park five minutes later. They were now out of sight and well away from Faidi, Erica and the body guards.

Sarah continued to take pictures of everyone coming and going from the café and the immediate area. Marisa was looking around the park for anything that might look suspicious.

Later, analysts in the five intelligence agencies would pour over the photos, Sarah had taken, just in case someone of interest might pop up when passed through their facial recognition software.

The meeting ended twenty minutes later.

Faidi got into his car with the two bodyguards.

A second watch team made up of Mossad agents followed Faidi out of Lisbon. They stayed well back in order not to be spotted. Once again Faidi spent thirty minutes driving aimlessly before he settled on his real destination.

The blonde woman with the floppy grey sun hat headed for her blue Opel car. The team assumed she was headed for Frankfurt, her license plate was passed on to the German BND.

The BND would take over surveillance of the Opel. Until they did, a French drone provided by the DGSE would keep track of the Opel's movements as it drove through Portugal and France. There were high hopes that Erica Amstutz would lead them to the other members of her terrorist cell in Franfurt.

**{}**

Ten minutes after Faidi left, Marisa was picked up by another Mossad agent. They would catch up to the second watch team following the bomb maker.

Faidi eventually led the Mossad agents to the town of Evora, two hours from Lisbon.

Evora had a municipal airport near an Embraer manufacturing facility.

The terrorist wasted no time and quickly boarded an Embraer 100. The aircraft was fueled and waiting for him. It was owned by a numbered company, which in turn was owned by two more numbered companies. It would take another two days for the CIA to unravel the corporate shell game. The ultimate owner of the plane was a Lebanese oil drilling company.

The Embraer 100's movement across Portugal and Spain and the Mediterranean was tracked by an E-2C Hawkeye kindly provided by the US Sixth Fleet. Faidi's plane landed in Libya, at a private airfield in Misrata.

**{}**

As soon as Faidi's car was reported to be outside of Lisbon, Sarah, Casey and Cole went immediately to the British Embassy and then into their secure communications room.

The New Director of the CIA, Gayle Finny, Brigadier General Diane Beckman, NSA and Sir John Scarlet, 'C', appeared on an HD fifty-five inch monitor. The screen split into three panels, with one of their bosses filling each panel.

It took forty minutes for the agents to answer the bosses' detailed questions. At the conclusion of the debriefing, the team received a 'well done' and 'make sure' your written reports are submitted in the next eight hours.

At the front steps of the Embassy, the agents shook hands.

Casey couldn't resist one parting shot as he shook Sarah's hand. "So, Walker, are you going to hotfoot it over to the Tivoli to see your boy toy, maybe catch up on old times?"

Sarah caught the look on Cole's face. Casey was such a shit disturber. "No, I'm going back to the safe house and write up my report. Feel free to call me Casey, if you have any trouble spelling some of the big words in your report. You know anything with more than two syllables."

Casey grunted, shook Cole's hand and headed for the Airport.

Cole smiled at Sarah, he liked what he saw. He'd reviewed Sarah Walker's MI6 file and was well aware of the range of activities she'd been involved in.

In his eyes, Sarah Walker was the perfect spy package, beauty, brains, a dry wit and as deadly as a Western Taipan; a viper he'd been explicitly warned about when training with the Australian SAS.

He put out his hand. "Agent Walker, a real pleasure to work with you. I hope our paths cross again."

As an afterthought, and still holding onto her warm hand, he volunteered, "MI6 has a little place down in the Algarve, very quiet, very private. If you'd like to unwind, it would be my pleasure to have you join me."

Sarah gave Cole a half smile. "Agent Barker, very kind of you to offer. However, I have a previous commitment that I must see to."

Cole was too much of a gentleman to ask Sarah Walker if the previous commitment's name might be Chuck. He made a mental note that someday he'd have to meet the chap that could hold Sarah Walker's attention.

**{}**

**July 25, 2009, 11:55 pm**.

**CIA Safe House on Rua Falcao Trigoso.**

Sarah had told Casey and Cole the truth; she didn't go to the Tivoli Hotel. She didn't rush over to see Chuck Bartowski.

Her innate disciplines governed her actions. First thing's first. She spent an hour writing her field report and filing it.

Next, she made one phone call to her boss, Director Gayle Finny. The Director was a little surprised about her ask but granted her request.

Immediately after ending the call with her boss, she opened her laptop. Sarah spent twenty minutes online over a secure connection. When she was finally finished she sat back and a large smile appeared on her face. Tomorrow would be a very interesting day.

_A/N2- On Sunday, 26 October 2008, the CIA conducted a paramilitary raid on the town of Sukkariyeh in eastern Syria. The raid involved "about two dozen U.S. commandos in specially equipped Black Hawk helicopters", according to reporters for the New York Times._

_A/N3- One bite's worth of the Australian Western Taipan's venom can kill a 100 grown men._


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

**A/N**\- A shortish but pivotal chapter. Thank you for reviews, PMs and following the story. A big nod to michaelfmx for editing.

_"His left arm is under my head, and his right arm embraces me."_

-**Song of Solomon ,2:6**

J**uly 26, 2009 -Noon**

Ellie gave the best hugs.

Chuck and his sister had already said their goodbyes, but Ellie wanted to have one more for the road. "Have a ball in Paris, little brother. And if by chance you meet a gorgeous Parisian girl…..well, live it up and have fun."

Chuck smiled at the little brother crack because he towered over his sister; with his big arms wrapped around her, Ellie's head nestled on his chest. "A trip of a lifetime, Ellie. To tell the truth I think I'm a little intimidated about meeting, sophisticated Parisian women…."

Devon interrupted him. "Hey Bro, stop with the negative thinking." He then switched into a cheesy French accent. "'Voulez -vous coucher avec moi, ce soir', the Parisian ladies might just fall all over you."

Chuck laughed. "Devon, I'm almost certain that no self-respecting Frenchman would ever be that direct with the ladies. My French accent is terrible, I might end up saying something that will garner me a slap across the face from the women of Paris."

**{}**

As Devon and Ellie passed through security, they looked back and gave Chuck one final wave.

Now he was on his own and, for the first time in a long while, he was excited about his life. He was going to Paris! He had planned everything out in great detail. His three-star hotel near Gare Montparnasse was a great find on the net.

One more night here in Lisbon at the Tivoli and then he would grab the night train to the French Border. He'd found a website called 'The man in seat 61' and got a cheap ticket in a reclining chair for the night journey across Spain.

He hoped that there would be enough leg room for his long legs and big feet.

After crossing the Spanish border, he'd transfer to a TGV highspeed train and then four hours later, voila, he'd be in Paris.

He felt lighter, his spirits more buoyant, after his long evening and night of sharing with Father Owen.

A smile slowly appeared, who knew maybe Devon was right but it wouldn't be a Parisian woman. Maybe a certain blonde spy might turn up in Paris. He muttered to himself, "Okay, let's get real here. Meeting Sarah Walker, sure….. that's going to happen, and she'd be standing right beside Kate Moss…both of them waiting for me on the platform. They'd wave at me and shout out….'Bonjour Chuckie'…sheeesh."

The fantasy daydream vanished quickly with a mere shake of Chuck's head. He quickly walked out of the terminal and grabbed a taxi to take him back to the Tivoli.

The cab driver was weaving through traffic as if he was training for the Le Mans road race. Chuck gave himself a fifty-fifty chance he'd make it back to the hotel in one piece.

The trip to Paris also had an element of mystery. He hoped to find someone, who may or may not still be alive. Madelaine Ross had given him the address days before she died. She shared with him that she hadn't been in contact with the person in Paris for over ten years.

**{}**

**Same Day- 2pm**

**CIA Safe House on Rua Falcao Trigoso.**

It was silly to be this nervous about choosing a dress and wondering about how to wear her hair.

My God, she did this kind of thing all the time for the job and it never took her this long nor raised her anxiety level so high. Sarah had mastered matching the look, to what the 'mark' was hoping to see. She seldom got it wrong, one look at the marks' eyes and she knew she had them.

This was quite different.

Chuck Bartowski wasn't a mark and she was off the clock. Did she want to impress him? Yes. Was she hoping that his eyes would dance with delight when he saw her? Oh, yes.

Twelve months was a long time, Chuck may actually be in a relationship. So, what would you do Sarah, if he was with someone? Try to steal him away from her? Sarah pushed those thoughts aside. Unless, unless he was actually married, she'd go ahead with her plans and hope…hope like hell that he hadn't found the right woman.

The dress was finally chosen. Now, to decide how she'd wear her hair and then the makeup, the merest touch would be best.

Thirty minutes later, Sarah Walker took one last look around the safe house. There was nothing left that would indicate that Sarah Walker had spent a week here. Her little, black roll on luggage case was packed and ready to go.

Fifteen minutes after she left, the CIA would send a team in to wipe down the apartment for prints and DNA. Then they would collect the black suitcase full of bugs, four different microphones, one Heckler & Koch MP5, one Glock 17 pistol and one Nikon D3, with a 300mm lens.

She sent a text to the clean up team.

As she closed the door and made sure it was locked, the butterflies once again started madly, flapping around in her stomach. Next stop the Tivoli.

**{}**

**Same Day- 3pm**

**Sky Bar, Tivoli Hotel-Lisbon**

Victor Rocha loved working here as a waiter. His daily tips were almost three times as much as his daily wage. On a day like today, with a blue sky, warm breezes and what was shaping up to be a gorgeous sunset, the bar would be crowded.

The tourists, who could afford to stay at the Hotel, the young up and comers of Lisbon, the powerful and the social climbers, would all come to the Sky Bar.

Victor was a charming young man, most ladies found him attractive with his dark almond shaped eyes, slim hips and broad shoulders. He was always on the lookout for an unattached woman, who might be looking for adventure and romance in Lisbon.

When the tall, elegant, blonde woman came into the bar, she stopped and looked around.

Victor wasn't the only man who noticed the tall woman's arrival. The blue summer dress with red flowers that the blonde was wearing showed her lovely figure off to good effect. The dress had a halter top that showed her tanned shoulders and just enough of her chest to be chic and not suggestive.

Her blonde hair was styled to sweep around and rest on her right shoulder. Victor, along with another waiter, rushed over to see if they could assist her in any way, any way at all.

Sarah had learned long ago to dismiss the envious glances that came her way from men and women. She was only interested in how one particular man would look at her this afternoon.

Finally, she noticed where he was sitting.

He had selected a cozy corner of the balcony with a spectacular view over the Tagus river. The river was a ribbon of marine blue that had widened as it neared the Atlantic Ocean.

Trust Chuck, he wasn't even looking at her, he'd missed her entrance. Dammit!

His whole being was absorbed by something on his laptop. Sarah was mildly disappointed. Let's see if I can change his focus.

Victor and the other waiter both arrived at the same time offering their assistance to the beautiful blonde. The woman turned to Victor and fixed him with a look. "That man over in the corner, looking at the laptop."

Victor had been serving Ellie, Devon and Chuck at the Sky Bar, since their arrival last Saturday. "Yes, you mean Chuck?"

"Yes, Chuck. Please, take him another one of whatever he's drinking and bring me a white Chardonnay." The blonde woman gave Victor a smile of thanks, her dark blue eyes caused his heart to skip a beat.

She looked at his name tag. "And Victor, start a tab for me and add Chuck's tab to mine."

**{}**

Chuck was busily working on his latest project.

When he got back to Burbank, they would be ready to run his algorithms against the huge data base that had been assembled. His foot was tapping under the table with excitement about whether the algorithms would work as he hoped.

There was a lot riding on the outcome of the database test, the others were counting on him.

He grabbed his bottle of Sagres and took a sip; there was a growing fondness for Portuguese beer. He hoped he could get some back in Burbank.

His peripheral vision saw the brown leather Prada sandals first, then the shapely legs, then the black carry-on, the woman with the great legs was pulling behind her. The blue dress came down just past her knees. The woman was standing there, waiting for him to look up and acknowledge her.

The hairs on the back of his neck tingled and he slowly turned his head and looked up.

Chuck gulped, his brown eyes grew wide and his eyebrows rose up on his forehead. "Sarah, it's you! But how?"

He stood up quickly and brushed against the table. His bottle of Sagres started to topple but he snatched it just before it crashed to the floor. He then turned back towards her.

"You….what are you doing ..….I never thought….ever.." Too many half-formed thoughts, too many questions got tangled up as he coped with his shock.

Now this was the reaction she was fervently hoping for, but she needed to calm him down. She leaned forward and gave him a European style, light kiss on both cheeks. "May I join you?"

Victor saw the kiss as he approached their table and shook his head in disappointment.

"Please, yes…..of course." Chuck snapped his laptop shut and moved it off the table as Sarah sat down beside him in the cozy little corner booth.

They had no time to talk any further, because Victor suddenly appeared with another bottle of Sagres and a chilled glass of white wine.

Victor Rocha envied Chuck Bartowski's luck in that moment. For it must surely be unbelievable, once in a lifetime luck, for the tall American to be with this sublime creature with the captivating blue eyes.

Chuck took a sip of his beer, the shock of seeing Sarah here in Lisbon was slowly wearing off. He could now start to form some coherent thoughts.

His delight at seeing Sarah, here was written all over his face. She certainly seemed glad to see him. However, this was no ordinary woman sitting in front of him. She was a master spy who knew how to ingratiate herself, to be alluring if she so chose. He had first hand experience that she knew how to use a gun and a knife.

Sarah noticed Chuck was just a tiny bit more cautious, she could almost see his thought spinning madly in his head.

Chuck needed to know, why she was really here. He wasn't going to be sucked into the Vortex of her beauty and charm without knowing, why she was here and especially, why now.

Was the CIA interested in his new project? Had she been sent to once again find out what he was up to?

"Sarah, is this work related….I sure hope that it isn't …because….."

She interrupted him. "Chuck, the first time we met, it was work related. We talked about that in Burbank, you know, the night when Casey came to visit." She saw Chuck's reaction at the mention of Casey's name.

"The first time we met, the CIA sent me to investigate what you were doing with Artificial Intelligence and also whether you were an elite hacker."

Chuck's tone was nervous. "And?"

Sarah quickly responded. "And, you were found to be pure as the driven snow." They were both looking at each other intensely. His dark brown eyes, locked into gazing at her dark blue eyes.

She wanted to touch him, to reassure him but held back. "The second time we met, well that was business and personal."

Chuck noticed Sarah was nervously tapping her fingers on the table. "So, the Intersect 'thingy' was the business, I get that, please remind me about the personal."

Sarah took a deep breath. "The personal Chuck was that, I wasn't going to let anyone hurt you. I told you that at the time. I was willing to risk my career to keep you safe."

Chuck saw how bright Sarah's eyes were as she talked. He believed her. "So, this time….ah the reason for this visit?"

"Intensely personal." She was happy with his reaction; she got a smile.

"Sarah where did you come… ….wait a minute. Is your name really Sarah Walker?"

Sarah reached into her purse and pulled out a laminated ID tag. She slid it over top of the table for Chuck to see. "Please don't flash that around, but take a quick look. That's what I wear when I'm in our Langley headquarters. CIA officers don't carry badges, we're not law enforcement, like the FBI.

The laminated ID tag had a picture of Sarah and the name Sarah Walker. Across the bottom right corner of the tag were two diagonal red stripes. "Uh, what do the two red stripes mean?"

Sarah leaned forward. "It means I'm a bad-ass person, with a very high security clearance."

Chuck pushed the ID tag back to Sarah, which was quickly slipped back into her purse.

"I'll start again. Sarah Walker, where are you going?" He looked over at her black carry-on luggage.

"That's up in the air …at the moment." She gave him a small smile.

"Okay, where are you staying?" He sensed she was toying with him.

"That's also ….up in the air?" Another Mona Lisa like smile from her.

Chuck leaned forward and smiled. "How long are you staying in Lisbon?"

Sarah leaned forward until their heads were inches apart. "That's most certainly …up in the air."

Chuck leaned back in his seat. He needed some more alcohol. He grabbed his beer and took a long sip. "You probably won't believe this, but I was just talking about you yesterday."

Sarah crossed one of her legs over the other and sipped her wine. "I do hope you spoke well of me….no disparaging comments, no nasty words that start with 'b'?"

Suddenly, her tone changed, became more serious. "I do hope you were discreet Chuck. It's not a good idea throwing my name or certain other facts, like say the 'Intersect' around, 'willy-nilly'?"

Chuck's tone lost some of its warmth. "Don't worry, everything that was discussed is most assuredly Sub- Rosa and will never see the light of day. You're safe."

Sarah was pissed with herself. She hadn't meant to break the mood. "Sorry, Chuck, I didn't mean to imply you'd do something foolish. And by the way, I'm more worried about your safety and Ellie's safety, rather than my own."

They sat there for a couple of minutes looking at the Tagus river and the city beneath them. Each of them was madly formulating how best to restart the conversation, to resurrect the initial mood.

Chuck ended the silence. "I read about your former boss, Langston Graham dying in the natural gas explosion at the Canola Research Station. Condolences, for your loss."

Sarah snorted. "You can save your condolences. And it was most certainly not an accident."

Chuck was glad that they were by themselves, in this part of the balcony. "Ahh, so some careful lies were trotted out for the great unwashed public to consume with their cereal and orange juice."

Sarah nodded. "Graham wasn't at any damn Canola Research Station. I was never read in on the Intersect Project. But the scuttlebutt is that he and six other CIA agents were killed in an explosion at a top-secret laboratory. The explosives were rigged by a clandestine cadre of disaffected, US Intelligence agents. They also wanted control of the Intersect."

Chuck remembered their last night together, twelve months ago. "When you left me, you implied that a big reason you had to leave me was because of Graham. Somehow or other he was a threat to you and your family."

Sarah smiled at him, she loved how sharp he was. "Is there a question coming?"

Chuck nodded. "So, with Graham gone and vaporized into random atoms, why didn't you contact me?"

Sarah reached out her hand and placed it on his bare arm. "Because, I was scared to, for a number of reasons, we'll talk about those reasons later. I'm also terrified that, given the time that's passed, you're going to tell me that you met somebody, somebody you really care about and that I….we… missed our chance."

Chuck felt the warmth of Sarah's hand on his arm, he felt his body tingle with her touch.

He'd had one date back in Burbank five months ago, that had been a minor disaster.

He put his hand on top of hers. "There is no 'somebody' in my life. The position is vacant."

Sarah felt the tightness in her throat and swallowed an initial response. She smiled at him, "Can…..Can I put my name forward for the 'somebody' position."

Chuck was wondering when the dream would end. When would he wake up in a dark room cursing his bad luck to find himself back in Burbank? Another dream about Sarah Walker gone up in smoke, and the sensation of crashing back to earth, as he got ready for another day at the Buy More.

He took a deep breath, looked at the Tagus River and blinked a couple of times, yep, still in Lisbon. This was not a dream.

"Sure, do you have an updated resume?" He gave her a big smile.

Sarah leaned towards him. "I don't have a written resume with me. Perhaps, a small oral exam." She leaned forward and placed her right hand on the back of Chuck's head and pulled him into a kiss that lingered for several seconds.

Chuck had acquired a nice tan during his time in Portugal, but when the kiss ended, Sarah could see him blush at the PDA.

Chuck found his voice. "Ahh, congratulations Ms. Walker. You can immediately start your probation period."

Sarah gave him a small punch on his left shoulder. "Probation period, my ass."

Sarah grabbed Chuck's big right hand with hers. "Chuck ask me those questions again…"

"Right, Sarah, where are you going?" He squeezed her hand.

"I'm going to Paris, with my 'somebody'." That elicited a big smile from him.

"So, Sarah, where are you staying tonight?" Chuck's brown eyes widened.

"I'll be staying at the four-star Tivoli-Orient tonight with my boyfriend." Sarah loved the feel of those words on her lips. She'd had one boyfriend in high school, it lasted exactly two weeks before she and her father had to blow town. A con had gone bad.

"Ms. Walker, how long will you be staying in Lisbon?" Chuck held his breath.

"One more day. I have to catch a train tomorrow night." Sarah's eyes were dancing with mirth.

Chuck shook his head as it fully dawned on him. "You've checked me out! You knew where I'm staying, that I was going to Paris and how I'm going to get there….when….how?"

Sarah slid over in the booth until she was nestled right beside him. "Chuck, in case you've forgotten, I'm a spy." Her blue eyes and her smile sent a shiver down his spine.

Sitting this close to Chuck was wonderful, and a little unsettling. "Chuck, Casey saw you yesterday, near the train station. We were on a mission; which I can't talk about. But he checked you out and so I knew what your plans were and where you were staying."

Chuck had mixed feelings about the CIA or NSA crawling up his ass and sifting through his life. For the moment he set that aside because right now he was almost living the dream. "Do CIA officers actually get to have a vacation?"

Sarah sat back and rested her left arm on top of the booth's backrest, she spent a second arranging her hair. For one or two seconds, she remembered the last time she'd taken a holiday.

It was the four days in Cabo with Bryce Larkin. Her high expectations at the beginning of that Mexican holiday didn't match what had transpired.

Bryce was a handsome man who possessed charm. It didn't take very long for her to break through that thin crust of charm and see what was underneath. She realized that Bryce would always love himself more than anyone else. He was a great spy to work with, but alas, Bryce was solidly at the center of his universe, with little room for anyone else.

She allowed herself the luxury of looking deep into Chuck's dark brown eyes. Her expectations for this holiday with Chuck were sky high.

Chuck gave a nervous laugh. "Sarah, hello….."

Her blue eyes smiled at him. "I'm on the start of a three-week leave, authorized by the Director of the CIA herself."

**{}**

**Tivoli Hotel, 8:25pm**

The Bartowski-Woodcombe hotel room was on the sixth floor and overlooked the Tagus River.

There was one bedroom and a spacious sitting area with a sofa bed. Ellie and Devon had taken the bedroom and Chuck had slept on the sofa bed. His feet had dangled over the edge of the pull-out bed.

The balcony door in the large bedroom was open to capture the soft evening breezes. The two of them had watched the Sun sink slowly in the west. Sarah was content to stay in bed and watch the sunset with Chuck. Hopefully the first of many sunsets. She chided herself not to get too far ahead in her flights of fancy.

Sarah Walker's index finger was making small circles on Chuck's hairy chest. The one Egyptian Cotton sheet was tangled around her naked body.

Chuck's hand was on her hip and a big smile was plastered all over his face.

Two hours ago, they'd left the Sky Bar to come up to his room to just drop off her carry-on luggage, then go and get something to eat. The moment they were in the room, alone, all other plans and thoughts were obliterated by their desires.

Sarah put her hand on his cheek. "Chuck, as much as I'd love to stay like this, I'm famished. Is it your intention to have the cleaning staff discover both of us dead, having perished from starvation, tomorrow morning? Let's get some room service up here."

Chuck's eyes widened. "Oh, no….we can't order room service….shit, shit, I forgot."

Sarah was puzzled by the sudden change. "We can't get something to eat? I'm starved, why not? What did you forget?"

He jumped out of bed. All of a sudden, he was a ball of energy. "I have a reservation at 9pm to dine and listen to Fado…..Devon arranged it for me."

He was jumping around on one foot as he tried to get his other leg into his pants. "Sarah, hurry, get dressed, we're going to O' Faia, to listen to Fado."

Sarah reacted immediately and rushed over to her carry-on luggage. "Chuck Bartowski, there'd better be some food at this place or….."

Chuck interrupted. "Ellie and Devon said the food at O' Faia was fantastic." He paused suddenly and his face beamed as he smiled at her, "Hey, this will be our first real date! Hurry."

**{}**

**10:30pm**

**O' Faia (Casa de Fados)**

They'd just managed to make their dinner reservation. Devon had warned Chuck before they left Lisbon, that if Chuck was more than ten minutes late, he'd lose his reservation to the huge number of people waiting in line.

This restaurant was renowned for its cuisine and Fado. The owner was a former fado singer, who would invite big name performers to show up to do a set. It was later that Chuck realized that the tall, blonde woman who had just completed her set was a superstar of Fado, named Mariza.

The music was haunting, beautiful, mournful, sad and liberating all at the same time. Chuck was an eclectic when it came to music and was entranced, he'd never heard anything like it.

Sarah's hand was on Chuck's thigh; and his arm was around her shoulders. The food, the wine, everything tasted amazing; the simple songs plucked at something deep within her. She understood a little Portuguese and appreciated the sense of longing, fate and melancholy that was being expressed in the words of the song.

The amazing thing was that the music wasn't depressing her or wrecking the mood. The opposite was taking place, she felt positive, excited; it was like she was emerging from a dark cocoon and light was pouring in. She felt deeply the change within her.

Sarah found herself unable to stop touching his hand, his arm or his leg. She needed to constantly ground herself by making physical contact with him. She leaned over and kissed Chuck lightly on the side of his face. He kissed her forehead.

Sarah smiled, because there were several surprises she was about to spring on Chuck. She couldn't wait to see his reactions. It was time to tell Chuck that they needed to go back to the Tivoli and their room. They needed to make up for lost time.

**{}**

A/N2- It has been many years since I visited Lisbon. The positive memories linger still, hence the location for C&S, to reconnect.

A/N3- Mariza is indeed a superstar of Fado. It is unlikely that Chuck and Sarah would see her in such a small, intimate venue.

A/N4- 'The Man in Seat 61' web site is the premier site for exploring train travel.

A/N5-A tiny part of Sarah's dialogue was borrowed from my wife's favorite film. A gilt edged shoutout in the next chapter for the first reader who PMs me the correct answer.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

A/N- Thank you for your continued interest in the story, for your reviews and PMs. Merci michaelfmx for editing this story.

_"London is a riddle. Paris is an explanation."_

_― G. K. Chesterson_

J**uly 27, 2009**

**Train Station, Oriente-Lisbon 9:34pm**

**Sud Express to Hendaye (Spanish/French Border)**

Hi, my name is Chuck and here are some things you may not know.

I'm headed to Paris!

I've spent almost ten years dreaming, saving and planning in order to make my dream trip happen.

Back in my Stanford days, I'd shared my dream, of visiting Paris, with Jill Roberts. When I finished talking about my dream, she gave me an indulgent smile, patting me on the arm. Her lukewarm response, "That sounds lovely."

Good news is, I'm not going to Paris with Jill.

Even better news, I'm going with Sarah Walker. I'm pretty sure that's not her real name, but it is her CIA name. My blonde spy speaks fluent French, which means that my translator and girlfriend are one in the same person.

About the girlfriend moniker, Sarah is the one who first used it, just about thirty hours ago. I'm ridiculously thrilled every time she calls me her boyfriend.

When I left Burbank one week ago, I was mildly depressed, didn't have a girlfriend and was nervous about my abysmal command of the French language; and that was after three months of practice.

This last day with my new 'girlfriend' has been full of surprises, some tough moments between us and some shared intimacy; actually, quite a few moments of shared intimacy.

I'll share Sarah's words with you, said two hours before we checked out of the Hotel. "Chuck, we're making up for lost time…..now, if you wouldn't mind, move that cute behind of yours over here."

Perhaps a word about surprises. Sarah is my 'mille-feuille'. No, I'm not comparing her to a dainty and delectable French pastry because she'd kill me if I ever said that to her. What I am saying is that she has got a lot of layers to her, 'a thousand leaves' and at least a thousand secrets. I think that my life with Sarah, from here on in, is going to be chock full of surprises.

We checked out of my hotel room at noon. I had planned to visit the Alfama district, that's the oldest part of Lisbon. When I shared that little gem, Sarah gave me a funny look and pursed her lips. "Chuck, I've seen enough of the Alfama district. Besides, I need to get something to wear when we're in Paris."

I was about to pursue why she had seen enough of the Alfama district, when she whispered in my ear, "It's classified."

Being a spy, she'd already looked through my suitcase. Not too hard to do, since it was laying open on the bed as I packed. "Chuck, you'll need somethings to wear. We're going shopping for you also."

My eloquent response was "Uhhhn?"

Her response to my eloquence was, "Chuck, just be thankful that I'm not Carina, she'd throw all of your clothes out on the street and buy you new ones."

Confusion was written all over my face. "Who's Carina?"

Sarah smiled at me. "Probably my best friend, who you'll meet one day, but not before you're fully briefed and carefully prepared."

I did successfully negotiate with Sarah for us to see the Belem Tower and the Rossio Square after our shopping expedition.

I've never dated a spy before. Well, that's not true. The first time we met, when Sarah was treating me like a mark, we were dating, but not 'real' dating, hell you know what I'm trying to say.

Anyway, a female spy certainly can look like a normal woman, however, looks can be deceiving. While we were in a little dress boutique, I noticed that the name on the credit cards she used to buy her clothes was Susan Weller.

Sarah noticed that I noticed the name on the credit cards. She came and stood right beside me. God, she smells so amazing, I mean that citrus, juniper shampoo she uses….ahhh… sorry, I lost the thread.

As I was saying, she stood beside me and shared, "I sure as hell don't want the CIA tracking my movements. The Director knows and has agreed that I can be off the grid for the next three weeks."

I'm more than impressed that, in this day and age, a person can still go off the grid. The Piranha could go off the grid, in fact I'd created a false identity. Two of my hacker friends helped me. Sorry, there I go again wandering off topic.

So, my girlfriend's name for at least the next week is Sarah Weller, not Walker. As long as she keeps calling herself Sarah, I'll survive.

At 1 pm, I was standing in a men's clothing store, on the Avenida da Liberdade, getting a new shirt, pants and shoes. I protested. "Sarah, I can't afford all this, and I sure as hell don't expect you to pay for me."

She looked at me for several seconds, I sensed her uncertainty.

A look of concern flitted across her face. She reached out with both hands and grabbed mine. "Chuck, you're my first boyfriend in more than eight years, hell…. maybe ever. This is my first real vacation in years. Please…. let me do this. Don't worry, these few things I'm buying you, they won't even make a dent in my personal finances."

A pair of very blue eyes, in the face of a beautiful woman, a woman I'd just had amazing sex with, less than three hours ago, is really hard to say no to. However, between you and me, I'm keeping track of what she's spent and I'll figure out some way to pay her back.

Now that I'm no longer working at the Buy More, my prospects, as they say, are looking up.

After the shopping expedition, we ended up in an outdoor café off Rossio Square. Sarah knew enough Portuguese to order our espressos and some of those delicious almond pastries I'd eaten with Father Owen.

I've noticed that when I'm with my new girlfriend the waiters pay close attention to our needs.

Or, should I say, Sarah's needs. I'm pretty sure I'm invisible to the waiters. To be fair, she looked amazing, but I'm hardly objective. The admiring looks from some of the other women was, I guess, a compliment. Her blue and white, sleeveless, V-neck dress cut off at the knees was a big hit with them and, of course, me.

For the first time in my life, I knew that other men near me were sending envious glances my way. In some cases, I think the other men were hoping I'd slip into an open manhole and disappear, leaving the playing field clear for them. Fat chance!

I believe I mentioned earlier that a tough conversation occurred between us. It occurred after we finished our espressos. I was gazing across the Rossio Square at the buildings.

Sarah grew very quiet; she seemed unsettled, less confident than before. When she looked up, I caught a look of sadness. "Sarah….?"

"Chuck, I need to get this off my chest, it's bothered me…. for a while. It's about our very first month together."

The noise from other patrons sitting near us became a background whisper, as my focus sharpened on Sarah's confession. I thought to myself, 'What bad news is she going to lay on me?'

"I told you Bryce Larkin was my partner."

I nodded.

"We worked together on several missions over a two-year period. For a time, we became more than partners…...we were lovers." Sarah looked down at her hands for several seconds and then lifted her head. "I ended it shortly after I met you. Bryce wanted to know why I was ending it. He can be pretty insistent, but I stonewalled him."

I had to ask. "Are you saying you ended being Bryce's lover because of me?"

"A big part of it was because of you." Sarah had a sheepish look on her face.

"Well, big is nice but there was another reason, right?" I was wondering what else it could be.

A smile played on Sarah's lips. "The other reason was that he had a huge ego. Carina once said that if Bryce ever wanted to commit suicide, all he had to do was climb up on his ego and jump off."

I couldn't stop myself, I snorted when I started to laugh. Sarah started laughing along with me. The laughter was infectious. People around us started to smile.

Sarah reached across the table and grabbed my hand. "I deeply regret how I acted towards you when we first met. I was in agent mode. A big part of me surviving this job was to build up barriers, close myself off to others."

I added the missing piece. "Especially marks." She squeezed my hand and I squeezed back.

"You mean you didn't fall in love with me at first sight? Because I'd fallen for you in the first two minutes of you walking into the Buy More."

Sarah leaned in. "We met for five days and I left on a mission for three weeks. When I returned, I realized within a week I was in real trouble. The problem was that I didn't know I was falling in love. I had the feelings but not the words nor did I understand what was happening to me.

"I thought women had special DNA to figure that out." I was teasing her to lighten the mood.

"Well, if they do, I didn't get my share. My father raised me from the time I was ten years old. My education was about how to spot a mark, how to work a con and how to create trust so you can use it against the very people that trust you." Sarah's eyes were closed as she remembered unpleasant things from her past.

I sensed that she didn't want to dwell on the past. "Sarah, I'm not exactly the poster boy for being in relationships. I've had dates with four women since I left Stanford. The dates with three of those women were over in record time."

I moved my chair to be closer to her. "One of the women was a friend of Ellie's, Brenda was her name. Anyway, she ended the date early because she was worried that she'd forgotten to feed her goldfish. How's that for being captivating?"

Sarah moved in close and kissed my cheek. "Dammit, now I can't use that excuse with you. Hell, I've never even had a goldfish."

I put my hand on her back. "When we get back to the States, I'll get you one."

So, I think you're all caught up now.

**{}**

**Train Station, Oriente-Lisbon 9:40pm**

Chuck took out his second-class ticket and tried to figure out where his car and reclining seat were located. "Sarah, did you manage to get a seat close to me?"

Sarah gave him a knowing smile. "You won't need that ticket. We're going over there." She pointed at the three sleeping cars marked 'Gran Clase'. She pulled out two first class tickets to show the porter.

He scanned them into his handheld and touched his cap. He then showed them to their private cabin with its own shower and toilet.

There was a lower berth and an upper berth that were already made up for them.

"Sarahhhh….?"

She looped her arm through his. "You and I are not going to sit up all night in a seat. I'd rather be tortured by the Russians." She gave me one of those looks that made me melt inside.

"Besides, the other passengers would be scandalized when I..." She leaned forward and whispered in his ear.

True to form, Chuck blushed. "Well, I'll take the Cary Grant berth below and you can have the Eva-Marie Saint berth. You'll be on top."

He got a quizzical look from Sarah. "North by North West….the Hitchcock movie….Oh good Lord, I have my work cut out for me. You're so movie challenged, but I can help."

Sarah closed the door to their private cabin. "I know who Cary Grant and Hitchcock are, I just haven't seen the movie. By the way, I will be on top." There was that look again. "Afterwards, I'll sleep in the upper berth."

She got the response she was looking for as Chuck blushed again.

**{}**

**Next Evening 6pm**

**Gare Montparnasse-Paris**

Chuck stepped off the train, a look of wonderment crossing his face.

Sarah had mixed feelings about the city of Paris.

The first few times she'd come here had been simple surveillance missions, as a CIA trainee. She'd fallen in love with the city. In 2003, Graham sent her here, to the City of Lights, so she could permanently turn out the lights for Evelyn Saunders; it was her Red Test.

It had taken Sarah two years for her to come back to Paris and not immediately regret being there.

This time she was hoping to fall back in love with Paris; to see the city through Chuck's eyes.

He pulled a little map out from his pocket. "The Hotel Apollon Montparnasse is over there." He pointed to the southeast. "It's on Rue Pernety. I think we can walk…. "

Sarah grabbed his hand. "Chuck, don't be angry with me but….…."

By now Chuck was getting used to Sarah's little changes to his original plans. However, this time, her little surprise would cost him a hundred euros because he failed to cancel his reservation twenty-four hours ahead of time. "Sarah, I wish you'd told me because…"

Sarah gave his hand a squeeze. "I called the Apollon and cancelled your reservation, two days ago. So, you're not out of pocket."

Chuck put his map away and turned towards his new girlfriend. "Dare I ask where we're going to rest our weary heads tonight…..No…..let me guess. We're staying with President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace."

Sarah laughed and gave him a quick kiss. "Don't be silly Chuck. I've never met the President. I'm taking you to my favorite place in all of Paris."

Chuck saw the pure delight in Sarah's eyes at this next little surprise, she was going to spring on him. "Apres toi, mon amour."

Sarah complimented him on the sentiment. "Thank you, we'll work on the accent, in bed tonight."

**{}**

**Hotel Le Meurice**

**506 -Executive Room -Park View**

Chuck felt like he was a hillbilly from Appalachia who'd been sent over to France as part of the American Expeditionary Force. And on his first leave he ended up in Paris. But he wasn't a rube, he was a big city kid and shouldn't be so impressed with another big city.

However, Paris sure wasn't Los Angeles.

He kept staring at his surroundings and stopped talking. Sarah had waved for the taxi at Gare Montparnasse and argued with the taxi driver in fluent French about the best way to get to the Hotel.

Sarah was nervous, waiting to see Chuck's reaction to Le Meurice, to being transported into all this opulence. "Chuck, you haven't said a single word since we got out of the cab."

When they'd entered the hotel, he noticed the floor to ceiling windows and the Doric columns. Le Meurice was a mini Versailles with Rococo ceilings. It was a little bit over the top in his opinion. When they went to the reception desk, Sarah and the manager spoke in French. It was too fast for him to follow.

However, Chuck had noticed, that the night manager addressed her as Mademoiselle Weller.

Sarah asked her question to him again.

He sat down on one of the Louis XVI chairs in their room, still adjusting to the luxury in the room. He had a serious look on his face. "Please tell me you didn't stay here with Bryce."

The question surprised Sarah. She had to remind herself that he was still learning who she really was.

She quickly moved across the room and sat in the other chair, facing him. "This is one of my special places. I've never brought anyone here. You, Chuck Bartowski, are the first man with whom I've wanted to share my special place."

A smile slowly formed on his lips.

"I suppose the bathroom is decked out in Italian Marble?"

Sarah nodded. "And it's got one of those Italian showers. You know, with the water coming out of four or five different brass nozzles."

Sarah touched her right arm and grimaced in fake pain. "Lately, I've been having problems with my right arm. I think I'll need your assistance in the shower."

Chuck's eyes widened, he laughed. "Well, that should take care of my fantasy dream number one."

Sarah grabbed his hand and they walked over to the Juliet balcony with the amazing view over the large park. Le Meurice was located beside the Tuileries Garden. The Louvre was a ten-minute walk from the front door, the Place de la Concorde was even closer. They wouldn't need a car; they could walk to half the places Chuck wanted to visit.

"When we came into the Hotel, did I see the restaurant has three Michelin stars."

"Yes, but excellent service and pleasing the guest is everything at Le Meurice. Chuck, my love, if you want Chicken a la Pepperoni, they'll cook it for you. Afterwards, the chef Alain Ducasse might destroy his 'Michel Bras' knifes in despair…. but… "

Chuck put his arm around her. "If things go well for me next month, I might be able to pay my share of the cost of our stay here back to you. I'm thinking that this room is a tad over my budget of 100 euros a night."

Sarah put her arm around his waist and drew him closer. "Chuck, this is my treat. I've lived on expenses for almost six years. Apart from the Porsche, and some clothes, I save rather than spend. Please let me spoil you. I'm creating memories for us….."

She stopped talking before the thought escaped her lips and she completed the sentence…..'for a lifetime.'

**{}**

**July 29, 2009 -1pm**

**Le Seizième : The sixteenth arrondissement**

**3 Rue Le Notre**

The young couple stood at the edge of the small park, Jardins de Trocadero directly behind them.

On their left was the Seine River. Straight ahead of them was a hundred-year-old, four-story red bricked building. The tall young man was wearing denim jeans and a small pack back. The elegant blonde had a yellow summer dress and was carrying a brown leather shoulder bag.

Chuck and Sarah had a late breakfast in their room. It had taken two or three hours for Chuck to get used to the luxury that surrounded him. There was, however, a significant, blonde-haired distraction that made the transition easier.

Chuck had his detailed list of things he wanted to see in Paris. Sarah had snuggled up close to him to read his list. When Sarah saw Madelaine Ross' name on the list, she peppered Chuck with questions.

What was the name of the person Madelaine wanted him to see? What was the address? What was the connection between this man, Monsieur Jean Simpson, and Madelaine?

Chuck smiled at Sarah. "What's the difference between a cat and a female spy. Answer, nothing."

Sarah brushed his quip aside. She was suddenly energized with her desire to immediately go to this address and find Monsieur Simpson. Chuck resisted at first because, on his detailed itinerary that he'd prepared, trying to find Monsieur Simpson wasn't supposed to happen until Day 3.

"Sarah, today my list says we're going to see the Eiffel Tower, Walk from the Place de Concorde all the way to the Arch de Triomphe and then …." Chuck didn't get to finish.

Sarah put her hands on the side of Chuck's face. "Chuck, if you change your itinerary this one time, I promise to make it up to you."

The kiss was scintillating, deep and passionate. She wrapped her arms around his neck and moved her fingers through his curly hair.

When the kiss ended, Chuck took a deep breath. "Wow…Okay, but right after we find Monsieur Simpson, we're going to the Eiffel Tower."

Sarah put her hand on his chest. "Mais Oui! I will absolutely follow your itinerary, no more changes."

**{}**

**Monsieur Jean Simpson's Apartment- 3 Rue Le Notre**

They knocked on the solid oak door a second time. The sound of a lock being turned meant someone was home. The door opened halfway. On the other side was a grey-haired man wearing a short sleeved red shirt and brown pants. The man's very green eyes were full of curiosity. "Oui?"

Sarah spoke to him in French and introduced themselves. When Chuck said hello, the man instantly switched into English, with a Bostonian accent.

Chuck picked up the conversation. "Mr. Simpson, Madelaine Ross gave me your address. When I told her I was coming to Paris, she said I should try to find you. Oh, and she gave me an envelope to give to you." Chuck pulled a brown envelope out of his little back pack.

The old man fully opened the door and invited them in with a sweep of his right hand. Chuck quickly did the math in his head. If this man was a contemporary of Madelaine's, he'd be well into his eighties. Jean Simpson looked pretty spry for his age.

He went into the little kitchen to prepare them tea, which left Sarah and Chuck time to look around the living room. Pictures that captured a lifetime were dotted around the room, on the mantel over the fireplace, on the piano and on the walls. Chuck and Sarah walked around the neatly ordered room to look at the photos.

Sarah found the photograph she was looking for. It was a photo of three people, two young men in uniform and a young woman, also in uniform. She remembered the one page she managed to read from Madelaine's diary. A smile appeared on Sarah's face; she knew who this man was.

Chuck went into the kitchen to help Jean bring out the tea pot, three cups and a dish of almond cookies.

Jean was an old school gentleman and asked their permission to read the letter. While he read, Sarah and Chuck quietly sipped their tea and closely studied the old man as he read through the letter. Tears appeared in Jean Simpson's eyes as he finished the letter.

"Ah, well Madelaine has gone to be with her dear husband Sean. How is it you came to know Madelaine?"

Chuck decided to start and told Jean about how he and Ellie had met Madelaine. Sarah then added how she'd met Madelaine only towards the end, but had found her to be a remarkable woman.

Sarah Walker knew how to get people to share their stories, to share their secrets. "Did you know Madelaine during the war?"

Jean smiled at her. "You noticed the picture on the wall. Yes, Madelaine, Sean and I were one of the Jedburgh teams that parachuted into France a day after D-Day."

Chuck leaned forward in his chair. "You mean Madelaine was a spy?

Jean laughed. "Not then, we were in uniform and part of the massive effort to free France."

Jean went on to tell the story of their landing just behind the German Lines. When they were dropped into Villiers-Bocage, they fully expected the British to have captured the small town within a week. Jean shook his head as he remembered; he shared it would take the Allies almost eight weeks to break through.

Sarah asked another question. "How did your team survive?"

Jean sipped his tea and then set the cup down on the table. "Madelaine had spent the first twelve years of her life in this area. We hid with several families. At night we were joined by a handful of resistance fighters and did what we could to disrupt the Germans moving up to the front lines. The Boche were ruthless as were we. No quarter was expected if we were caught, and no quarter was given."

A silence took over the room. Chuck was trying hard to imagine the old lady Madelaine he'd met as this young woman roaming the countryside at night, blowing up train tracks, ambushing motorcycle couriers and executing Kubelwagens full of German staff officers.

Sarah asked her next question. "When did she become a spy?"

Jean looked over at the pretty blonde woman. He was assessing her. Finally, he smiled at them both. "After the war, all three of us went into our countries' intelligence agencies. Madelaine stayed here in France and worked with the French. I returned to America and eventually worked with the CIA, after it was started." He stopped talking and looked at Sarah.

Chuck caught the look between them and wondered if Jean had guessed what Sarah's job was.

Jean continued. "Sean went back to England and worked with the SIS. We stayed in touch with each other. The Cold War was the ultimate 'Game' for all of us."

"Jean, how is it that you ended up here in France and Madelaine ended up in the United States?"

Jean slowly stood up. "Yes, that's a long story. I keep fit by a daily constitutional by the Seine. Join me in my walk and I'll tell the story."

**{}**

Jean set a brisk pace for an octogenarian.

He told the story of how Madelaine, while working in Berlin in 1950, once again met Sean. They soon became lovers, which they kept as a secret. Jean explained that even though they were Allies, on the same side, the British and French would take a dim view of their field agents having secret assignations.

Jean, who was called John back in his spy days, was assigned to Berlin in 1953. Soon after, the three ex-Jedburgh's met up and established a close working relationship and, more importantly, renewed their wartime friendship.

It was on a mission to East Berlin that Sean was captured by the Stasi, the East German Secret Police. Sean's German was excellent, with a Dresden accent. They were suspicious, but not certain, that he was a spy. They started to question him, eventually taking the gloves off and torturing him.

Madelaine contacted me the day he was captured and told me that Sean hadn't returned. She had a contact in the Stasi who told her where he was being held in Berlin. Fortunately, it wasn't at the main headquarters.

Rather, it was in a smaller interrogation center near the Spreekanal. It was only two kilometers from Checkpoint Charlie.

Jean's voice took on an urgent tone, as if he was relieving those moments.

Madelaine pleaded with Jean to go with her, she needed his help to get him back. Jean looked over at Sarah and said, "I knew I was going on an unsanctioned mission, but friendships forged in war make the strongest bonds."

Jean told them about the rescue. It was in the middle of the night. There were three guards. The one at the entrance was subdued and quickly gagged and tied up. The two of them crept down the dimly lit hallway with their guns drawn. Inside, they could hear the insistent questions being directed at Sean. Followed by the sounds of a punch landing or a slap.

Madelaine quietly opened the door and took in the scene laid out in front of her. There was no hesitation on her part, she shot both of the Stasi in the head. They quickly untied Sean, who was bloodied. The interrogators had broken several of his fingers, along with his nose and probably a couple of his ribs.

They wrapped Sean up in a blanket and put him in the trunk.

Jean stopped walking. "We arrived at Checkpoint Charlie before the alarm was given and made it across safely, into West Berlin.

"However, all three of us were censured by our respective agencies. The French were furious with Madelaine, she resigned a week later. Sean was sent back to England to recover and be debriefed. Very shortly afterwards, Sean resigned and moved to the United States with Madelaine.

"The CIA were very unhappy with me."

Sarah had to ask. "What happened to your career with the CIA afterwards?"

Jean nodded. "I was immediately ordered back to the States. I stayed with the agency for another two years. The work was okay but my days as a field operative were over. I finally realized that I'd had enough. I resigned and decided to return to France. In truth, it was in France for those two short years that I felt more alive and happier than at any other time in my life."

**{}**

They walked Jean back to the entrance of his apartment on Rue Le Norte. Jean embraced them both and thanked them for their care of his dear friend Madelaine in her last days.

As they walked towards the Eiffel Tower, Sarah knew she had to share another of her many secrets. "Chuck, when I was looking after Madelaine, while she was asleep, I discovered a shoe-box full of photographs and her diary. I only managed a quick glance through it when I had to put it back in its hiding place, because you showed up. I knew she was a spy."

Chuck looked over at his spy girlfriend. "Did Madelaine figure out you were a spy?"

Sarah nodded yes.

Chuck then asked Sarah to describe the shoe-box. After she was finished, he put his arm around her shoulders. "I know where the box is."

Sarah stopped walking. "What?"

He smiled at her. "When we get back to Burbank, I just might show you where it is?"

The elbow landed on his ribs. It was a gentle blow. "Chuck, have you looked through the shoe-box?"

He laughed. "No, not yet."

"Why not?"

"It's complicated. Listen, after we visit the Eiffel Tower, I'll explain." Chuck completely ignored another request by Sarah to talk about Madelaine's mysterious shoe-box. He walked ahead of her towards the iconic tower that loomed in front of him.

She jogged to catch up with him and grabbed his hand. After two or three steps she gave him a little bump with her hip, that made him smile.

**{}**

Together they crossed the Pont d'lena and there it was reaching up to the sky.

They purchased their tickets and Chuck was now in command. He insisted they walk up. Sarah easily matched Chuck's quick pace up the wrought-iron stairs.

He vibrated with excitement at finally being here. Several times he stopped to look out over the city drinking in the sights.

They quickly reached the second floor and waited for fifteen minutes to get onto the elevator in order to get to the very top.

There was a steady warm wind when they stepped off the elevator. The sky was a brilliant blue canvas and the panorama that was Paris lay before them. Sarah pointed out the different parts of Paris and the historic sites.

Chuck had spent years hoping to get here and peppered Sarah with questions about where the Sorbonne was, the Pantheon and the Roman baths. Sarah was able to answer most of his questions. The one question she had no clue about was the location of the cemetery where Jim Morrison was buried. Chuck even knew the name of the cemetery, Pere Lachaise.

Chuck smiled at her. "We have soooo much work ahead of us….so many movies, songs, books for me to introduce you to."

Sarah rewarded him with a dazzling smile in that perfect moment. She knew that the feel of the wind in her hair, the warmth of his hand, the smell of his body-wash and the look in his dark brown eyes would stay with her until the day she died.

**{}**

A/N2- I sympathize with Chuck about speaking French. When I worked in Paris, I wish I had Sarah along as my translator.

A/N3- WillieGarvin shared that he has a book about the Jedburgh Teams with a list of all the team members who parachuted into France. It appears that no women actually did jump into France with the Jedburghs.

A/N4- Finally, in this extraordinary time we find ourselves in, may you and your families be safe and stay safe. The Chuck FF site is a global community. I hope this story and so many other great stories on this site will be a welcome distraction to you. Blessings on you no matter what corner of our 'common lifeboat' you find yourself in.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

A/N- The story continues. Thank you for the reviews, PMs and well simply reading the story. Thanks michaelfmx.

_"Above all, be the hero or heroine of your life, not the victim."_

_\- Nora Ephron_

J**uly 30, 2009**

**Hotel Le Meurice**

**506 -Executive Room -Park View**

Sarah slipped out of bed without waking Chuck, bent down and grabbed the plush Egyptian cotton bath robe. The luxurious feeling of the warm cotton enveloped her. She secured the waist tie and put up the hood. Their room faced the Jardin des Tuileries. Sarah could see dawn's first light creeping along the trees and grass. The shadows surrendering to a new day and that which was hidden being revealed.

Paris never slept but it did have moments of quiet where early risers could be still and contemplate the mysteries of life and love. She quietly opened the balcony doors so she could hear the sounds of the morning.

The park-garden was now bathed in soft morning light. She loved the moment and was at peace with herself for the first time in many, many years.

The sound was barely discernible and she never gave any indication she'd heard him. He was coming up behind her as she looked out from the Juliet balcony. The anticipation of him standing behind her and wrapping his long arms around her, pulling her closer to him, made her shiver.

"Good morning." He moved her hood just enough to be able to kiss her on the cheek and wrapped his arms around her.

Sarah arched her head back into his chest. "Bonjour. Look Chuck, the Jardin is coming alive, I've always loved this view and this time of day."

She pivoted in his arms, to face him, stood on her tip toes, reached up and kissed him. A long, slow, deep kiss that Chuck eagerly responded to. When the kiss finished, Sarah took him by the hand and led him back to their bed.

**{}**

**Four Hours Later**

**Catacombs**

The young couple strolling along the Avenue du General Leclerc were obviously in love. Only a blind person or a curmudgeon could miss the signs. The statuesque blonde only had eyes for the tall man with the curly brown hair. The woman was getting plenty of admiring looks as she walked beside him, from other men, but was oblivious to them.

Chuck had the Catacombs on his list of things to see today. Sarah would gladly have given this spot a miss, the last thing she wanted to see was several hundred skeletons. But she was going to be a good sport about it and enjoy his enjoyment. Chuck's enthusiasm at this moment was irresistible, she allowed herself to be swept along in its wake.

A small part of Sarah's mind was still thinking about their meeting yesterday with Jean Simpson.

A part of the mystery of Madelaine Ross had been revealed, but there was more. Madelaine's other secrets were still hidden in her diary and the photographs tucked away in an old shoe-box.

Chuck, after some encouragement, had finally told her the story about Madelaine's shoe-box.

Madelaine, that crafty old spy, had called Chuck the morning after Sarah had first met her.

She'd somehow known that Sarah had been snooping around her apartment while she slept.

The old lady had also somehow divined that Sarah might've found the cleverly hidden shoe- box. Unfortunately, Sarah was only able to give the contents a cursory glance; she'd had to hastily put it back into its hiding place before Chuck came into Madelaine's apartment.

The next evening, when she was once again watching over Madelaine, she couldn't find the box, in spite of her best efforts. It was gone.

It was now clear to Sarah that to keep the box out of her hands, Madelaine had asked Chuck to take it to a law firm, Bartsch & O'Neill, whose offices were on Sunset Blvd. Madelaine had also handed Chuck a letter with instructions for her lawyer.

The real surprise for Sarah had been that Madelaine's estate had just recently been settled. Dealing with estates was often a long, drawn out affair in Los Angeles, even when there was a will.

There had been complications with the estate, the sole inheritor, a third cousin of Madelaine's, had died before her. All of this searching for the third cousin, and confirmation that she had predeceased Madelaine, took time. Chuck told Sarah that the IRS had finally signed off on the estate last week. A formal reading of the will would take place and distributions to the beneficiaries could now be made.

Chuck, Ellie and The American Cancer Society were the three inheritors. When Chuck returned to Burbank, they'd meet with Mr. O'Neill. Chuck was pretty sure that the shoe-box was still with the lawyer.

Sarah's spy instincts were only working at about fifty per cent as they walked past the café on the corner of Rue Daguerre. Falling in love with Chuck had been extremely distracting. Wonderful, thrilling, but nonetheless it had dampened her observational skills. However, the man sitting at a table by himself was looking right at her with a smug smile on his face.

Chuck felt the tug on his arm and he was jerked to a sudden halt. He glanced over to where Sarah was looking.

There were some people, once you meet them, you never forget them. John Casey was such a person.

Casey smiled at them both and gestured with his hand for them to join him at his table.

Sarah and Chuck sat down and, before anyone could speak, the ever-vigilant waiter asked for their orders. In rapid fire French, Sarah ordered two café cremes and two croissants.

"What the hell Casey, are you spying on me?" Sarah was pissed off.

"Don't flatter yourself Walker. I was on my way to Haren, for a NATO meeting. Your boss yanked my chain, and derailed my plans. I was ordered to find you ASAP." He sat back in his chair. "Your little assignation with Bartowski will have to wait." Casey smiled to himself, he'd been right about Walker and Bartowski.

"The Director told you to find…, wait….I'm on leave…" Sarah stopped talking when the waiter showed up with their coffee and croissants.

When the waiter left, Casey leaned forward and continued. "We have an urgent matter to deal with."

Sarah knew that it had to be something related to their mission in Lisbon. What the hell had popped up? "How did you find me so quickly? What's going on?"

Casey gave a wolfish smile. "I didn't have to find you; all I had to do was find him. I knew he was in Paris and I had a hunch that you two were together, even though you told me you weren't."

Casey looked over at Chuck. "Bartowski isn't cleared to know about what's going on. Bartowski it's probably best you head back to your little love nest. Walker will join you later and tuck you into bed."

Chuck looked over at Sarah, who was now royally pissed. "Chuck, stay here." She got her phone out and walked away from the table.

Casey and Chuck looked at each other.

Chuck was slightly intimidated by Casey and was planning on keeping silent. Casey carried himself like a professional soldier. Chuck suspected he somehow was still connected to the military. The man had admitted he was headed to a NATO meeting. Maybe he could prod the soldier in Casey. "We visited the Muse d'Armee this morning. Did you know that Napoleon lost the war with Russia but never lost a single battle?"

Major John Casey, USMC, Annapolis, class of 1986, graduated 185 out of 1,015, was an eager student of military history. He should've said nothing, but the lure was too bright, too shiny. "Napoleon never had a chance, Field Marshall Kutuzov and General 'Winter' beat him. Also, Napoleon forgot about logistics, that's what wins wars."

When Sarah came around the corner, she was surprised to see Casey and Chuck talking to each other. When she had left to talk with her boss, she fully expected the two of them to just stare at each other until she returned. What the hell did they have to talk about?

Sarah sat down and looked at Casey first, then at Chuck. "As of two minutes ago, you're now a consultant with the CIA. The Director of the CIA has agreed that you're my IT support.

She turned to Casey with a look of satisfaction. "The Director has cleared him for this mission."

Then she looked at Chuck. "When we get back to the hotel, you'll have to sign five or six forms. I also need to advise you that as of this moment you're now governed by US code title 18, subsection 798."

Chuck's eyes widened. "I don't know what that means exactly."

Casey smiled. "It means, Bartowksi, that if you talk to any unauthorized persons, about any of this, we lock your ass in jail for the next fifteen years." He then turned to Sarah. "So, what exactly is Bartowski's skill set, other than making your toes tingle and turning your insides to warm mush?"

Sarah didn't react to Casey's riposte. "Chuck's an elite hacker, one of the best computer people I've ever met." Sarah knew this was stretching the truth but she was dammed if Casey and the CIA were going to rip Chuck away from her at this moment.

Casey snorted. "If you're bullshitting me Walker, so help me."

Chuck spoke up, his tone was now confident. "She's not bullshitting you."

Sarah and Casey briefly filled Chuck in on who Faidi and Erica Amstutz were, and what had happened in Lisbon.

Casey then explained what was going on. "We lost track of Erica Amstutz in Pamplona. She's clever, abandoned the car she was driving in a huge underground parking lot. The car, by the way, was stolen. Yesterday, Erica turned up in Paris and not Frankfurt, like we expected."

With his hand, Casey motioned to Sarah. "The photos you took in Lisbon were uploaded to the DGSE's facial recognition software two days ago. They got a hit late last night as Erica stepped off the train at Gare Montparnasse. She still doesn't know; that we know about her."

Sarah's worry level for the people of Paris was quickly ratcheting up.

She recalled the debriefing meeting they'd participated in at the British Embassy. "When Faidi and Erica were quietly conspiring with each other in Lisbon, the recordings we have didn't mention anything about Paris?"

Casey wasn't finished. "When it rains it pours. We tracked the plane Faidi left Portugal on. It landed in Misrata, Libya.

"Last night, a small CIA alpha team HALO jumped into Misrata airport at night. Guess what? The plane's gone? And of course, the airport authorities in Libya are dragging their feet with filed flight plans and registration information."

Sarah was puzzled. "I thought we had an E-2C keeping an eye on it?"

Casey shook his head. "No, that was only on loan from the Sixth Fleet to track its outward journey from Portugal. The Navy need their Hawkeye back. It has been tasked elsewhere. They must've flown the Embraer 100 out hours after the E-2C broke contact."

Chuck had a dozen questions that he would ask Sarah later, when they were alone. He wondered how Sarah knew that he was an elite hacker. Had she figured out he was the Piranha? He did have one pressing question that wouldn't wait. "Where's Erica now? Why not just arrest her?"

Casey nodded. "Don't I wish. We lost her once she left the station. Everyone's looking for Erica, including us. We're now working with the French; they have the lead on this mission, after all, it's their country. At the moment, we're sharing our information with them and they'll give us access to CCTV cameras in Paris."

**{}**

**One Hour Later**

**Hotel Le Meurice**

**506 -Executive Room -Park View**

Chuck and Sarah hadn't said very much to each other in the taxi on their way back to their hotel.

They'd only had fifteen minutes of alone time once they entered their room.

She knew Chuck had at least a hundred questions that she couldn't answer in the short time they had.

"Chuck, I know I stretched the truth when I told the Director that you were an elite hacker…..but I wasn't going to let them end our time together. Damn them, I've given them eight years of my life." She stopped talking to rein in her emotions.

Sarah looked at Chuck for any signs of panic, or to see if he was angry with her. He was nervous, she knew him well enough to spot that, but there were no signs of panic. Instead of anger, he looked a little excited with what was about to happen.

"Chuck, if you want to get out of this, now's the time. Sign the forms the Embassy sends over, stay in the room and, hopefully, we might be able to salvage some of our holiday together."

Chuck moved towards her and put his hands gently on her shoulders. "I was telling Casey the truth; I can help you, and hey, I have the CIA and NSA resources backing me up. Who's my contact at the CIA?"

Sarah pulled out her phone and called Brett Cousins at the CIA, she trusted him. She spent four minutes filling Brett in and then handed her phone to Chuck. She could only hear Chuck's side of the conversation. Pretty quickly, the conversation got so technical she couldn't follow any of it.

Five minutes later, Chuck handed the phone back to Sarah.

Brett had been impressed. "Sarah, he's pretty good, this is going to be interesting." Brett concluded the call by telling Sarah to have Chuck call him back once the laptop from the US Embassy arrived.

Chuck had been impressed with Brett. However, there was a tiny little problem. How could he keep from letting them know just how brilliant a hacker he was?

His problem now was not to reveal to the CIA or the NSA that he was the Piranha. He wondered what might happen to him, if they found out?

Chuck was acquainted with how life could suddenly deal him a losing hand. Once this mission was completed, the worst-case scenario might be they'd thank him for his services, then arrest him for being a wanted felon and slap him in a Federal prison.

When Chuck looked over at Sarah, she was sitting on the edge of the bed, lost in thought. He wanted to share something. He felt it deep down in his gut that he must do it, and right now. He couldn't remember the author's name but he remembered his words. _The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them._

"Sarah, you need to know something, something that I hid from you back in Burbank. I guess we were both a little duplicitous with each other."

Sarah stood up and walked over to him, the anxiety in her eyes was impossible to miss.

"Sarah, I'm the Piranha, I think you and the CIA might've been looking for me." He waited for her reaction, but they were interrupted.

The knock on the door was not a surprise.

Sarah motioned Chuck to stand away from the door. He moved so that his back was flat against the wall. The woman he loved was a magician of sorts, because there was now a gun in her right hand. She hadn't clicked the safety off but it was out and ready to be used. The softness in her amazing blue eyes had disappeared, replaced by a focus and an aura of menace. It was a bit frightening.

Sarah waited and then heard Casey's voice. "Walker, open the damn door, this suitcase is heavy."

The big man came in with a large, heavy black suitcase that he swung up onto the bed. He used his thumb to rotate the numbers in the lock mechanism and then opened the suitcase to reveal a spy cornucopia.

Chuck was leaning over Sarah as she and Casey started to examine the contents in the large suitcase. He almost laughed out loud because this was like being in one of those Jack Ryan meets James Bond, meets the Unit, movies.

There were two MP5SDs submachine guns, two Beretta 92Fs, three spare magazines, listening devices and two bullet proof vests. Chuck smiled when he saw the laptop computer. He knew that this thing was going to come absolutely fully loaded with the CIA's latest technology. Cool. He couldn't help it as, a big grin spread over his face.

Even though she wasn't looking at him, Sarah felt Chuck's smile when she pulled out the laptop. She handed it to him with a piece of paper containing the password to get into the laptop.

He immediately went to the Louis XVI desk, plugged in the laptop, keyed in the password and then called up Brent Cousins at the CIA. They talked for ten minutes as Chuck's fingers flew over the keyboard. It was eight am in Washington but Brett Cousins told Chuck that he would stay until he wasn't needed anymore and was prepared to stay until he wasn't needed anymore. Chuck thanked him and ended the call.

Chuck couldn't quite believe that the CIA, the NSA and, to a lesser extent, the DGSE were going to support him in hacking into….well, just about anything he or they wanted.

He mumbled to himself, "Pinch me….this has got to be a hacker's ultimate wet dream."

Sarah had moved closer to Chuck to see how he was getting on. She overheard his comment. "What are you saying about dreams?"

The blush bloomed on Chuck's neck and reached his ears in three heartbeats.

**{}**

**Three Hours Later**

They'd ordered room service. Casey and Sarah ate while they watched Chuck coordinate his hacking efforts with the DGSE and the CIA.

Casey was a patient man, but he was getting antsy to do something physical. Time to get out of the room. Go find a terrorist or, even better, shoot a terrorist.

Sarah and Casey had talked for thirty minutes with their DGSE liaison, Marie-Claire Savard, when she dropped by the Hotel to exchange the latest information.

The DGSE had provided them with a Renault SUV for their exclusive use. It was parked downstairs and was equipped with a computer and encrypted communications for them to link in with the mobile DGSE teams now searching Paris for Erica Amstutz.

After their visit with Marie-Claire, they tried to get into the mind of Erica Amstutz.

Where would she go? Who would she meet up with? It was a frustrating and, ultimately, a fruitless exercise. There were too many questions, no sightings of Erica, no hot leads from confidential informants, and precious little hard data.

Casey started to think about the Embraer 100 that Faidi Zuebidi had boarded in Portugal and had landed at Misrata, Libya.

Who the hell was backing Faidi. They already knew about his connection with the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade. Casey shook his head, there had to be a bigger player helping Faid and Erica. Private Jets, took serious money more than a splinter terrorist group could command.

Was Faidi on that plane when it left Libya? Where did the plane go? Casey smiled; they did know the registration number of the plane. He made a quick phone call to General Beckman. Ten minutes later ,she texted him the registration number of the plane, N579JS.

He barked out his question to Chuck. "Bartowski, let's see how good you really are. Can you find me this plane, registration, November five, seven, niner, Juliet, Sierra?" He walked over to sit down beside Chuck.

Chuck didn't know much about airplanes. Casey knew a lot and told him where to start looking. Every time they hit a firewall for an airport's computer system, or that country's National Aviation Authority, Chuck used some of his own bag of hacker tricks, along with the tools that the CIA/NSA and Brett Cousins had given him.

There were a lot of airports and different databases to check.

Chuck checked with Casey. "What's the range of an Embraer 100?" Casey answered, "I'd guess 2,000 plus kilometers, I'll check, why?"

Chuck was the ultimate layperson when it came to spying, but from the mouth of babes, sometimes comes wisdom. "What if Faidi was headed to a major capital in Europe, say Berlin, Frankfurt, Paris, London, Vienna or Amsterdam, or hell, even back to Lisbon. Could the plane make it that far without refueling?"

Casey was about to dismiss Chuck's idea but took a moment, sat back and thought about it.

They couldn't look everywhere, and they couldn't be everywhere. Erica was here, they were here.

What was the worst-case scenario? John Casey had seen too much bad shit in his career, and he could think of a lot of worst-cases. "Walker, what are the chances that Faidi was headed for Frankfurt or Paris?"

Sarah walked over to the desk and put her right hand on Chuck's shoulder. "I don't know, the operation Faidi and Erica were planning in Lisbon was for Frankfurt. The bombing the two of them were planning wasn't supposed to occur until December. That's why we let them leave without taking them down."

Chuck had listened to Casey and Sarah tell him about their surveillance mission in Lisbon. He'd been replaying the recorded conversation between Erica and Faidi, around and around in his mind, while also searching for Faidi's plane.

A thought popped into his head. "The Wrath of Khan! Maybe Faidi and Erica were doing the Kirk -Spock discussion." He looked over at Casey for some understanding. Zilch. He turned his head to look at Sarah, she shook her head. Nada.

He quickly explained about how Kirk and Spock knew their conversation might be overheard by Khan and talked in code. "You remember, 'Admiral…. hours could seem like days. Starfleet regulation 46A', remember?" Nothing, Casey and Sarah, still didn't get it.

Chuck was wondering how on earth they had not seen the movie. Were they both raised in a backwoods cabin with no electricity?

He blurted his idea out. "Don't you see? It was a simple substitution code, a day meant an hour, an hour meant a minute. What if the two terrorists had their own code; where Frankfurt meant Paris and December meant August?"

Casey sat back, his worry level shooting up. The kid might be right. It was a possible explanation for why Erica was here and not in Frankfurt. "Fuck."

Sarah immediately called Marie-Claire and shared the American's concerns and suspicions, that Faidi might also be in Paris. Marie-Claire shared the American's suspicion that an infamous bomb-maker might be in Paris. The information moved up the chain of command until a phone call was made to the Elysée Palace.

Casey looked at Sarah. "Walker, get yourself ready. Let's get in the SUV and start driving around, I've got a bad feeling about this."

He turned to Chuck. "Bartowski, can you stay connected if we go mobile?"

Chuck nodded. "Yes, I can grab WIFI on route, and if not, I've got a satellite hook up. Trust me, I'll stay connected." He looked at Sarah, hugging the laptop. "Can I keep this laptop when we're finished?" Sarah smiled at him but still shook her head.

Casey aimed a grunt at Chuck. "Go put on your bullet proof vest, move it."

**{}**

**One Hour Later**

**Drancy-North East of Paris**

The DGSE assigned the three Americans to drive around a district outside of Paris to the North-East. Casey suspected it was a way to keep them involved, but not underfoot. He got it, they were not the A-team. Still, he felt better at being mobile.

"Bartowski, have you found that damn plane yet?" Chuck shook his head. There were three airports in Paris and five other airports within a hundred to two hundred kilometers. Chuck and the DGSE had checked them all, no plane registration N579JS had landed or taken off in the last five days.

Chuck was as frustrated as Casey and Sarah. It was Sarah who came up with another idea. "Chuck, can you identify all the Embraer 100s that have landed in airports in Paris and within say two hundred and fifty kilometers, for the last two days?"

Chuck was able to easily slip behind the EASA's (European Union Aviation Safety Agency) firewall with the hacker tools at his command. He started to look for the information Sarah was looking for. It took him five minutes to isolate the data he wanted. "Okay, there are only 99 Embraer 100s that have been produced and delivered. We have two Embraer 100s that landed in France, one in Lille and the other at Le Bourget Airport. But, the registration number for both aircraft doesn't match N579JS."

Casey finally placed one piece of the puzzle together with some of the other pieces. "Okay, whoever's backing Faidi and his operation has very deep pockets. They've cloned the aircraft, changed the registration number and the transponder code to match."

Sarah called Marie-Claire at once and told her about their hunch. She told the DGSE liaison that they were headed to Le Bourget Airport to check out the Embraer that landed there two hours ago with a registration number, N756SJ. Sarah requested that Marie-Claire investigate the other Embraer that landed in Lille, in Northern France.

**{}**

**Twenty Minutes Later**

They approached the airport through back roads, off the D317, and stopped a kilometer from the main terminal. The airport handled the business travelers, private jets and charters, and the uber rich, who could afford to own their very own Boeing or Airbus.

Sarah and Casey met the commander of the Brigade Anticommando (BRI-BAC) behind a hangar. He was part of a four-man team that Marie-Claire had rushed out to Le Bourget Airport to meet them.

Sarah spoke better French than Casey. She quickly explained what they needed to do to the commander of the unit. Chuck stood behind Sarah and watched as his new girlfriend devised a plan with the French to find the aircraft, isolate it and not shoot up over a billion dollars worth of private jets. Le Bourget was the exclusive enclave of the rich and famous traveler. These were the sort of people who didn't want to mix with the common man at Charles DE Gaulle or Orly Airport.

The French commander was adamant that fire discipline was essential. There was too much jet fuel sitting in the planes all around them. It was agreed that the BRIC-BAC squad would enter through a side entrance. Airport Security would assist them in finding the aircraft, check the registration on the aircraft, pull the transponder and detain anyone that might actually be in the plane.

Somebody had to go into the main terminal to see if either Faidi or Erica were still in there.

Sarah checked that her Beretta was ready to be used. When she finished, she slipped it into the flat pancake holster behind her back and tugged the black cotton turtleneck to hide the gun.

"Chuck, when we drive up to the terminal, I want you to stay in the car."

Casey spoke up. "Walker, if you and I go in their dressed in all black tactical gear, and Faidi or Erica are in there, they won't hesitate to start shooting. They won't give a damn who might be in the way."

Sarah hated what she knew Casey was going to say next. "If you covered your vest with the black cotton shirt and went in with Bartowski, you'd almost look like a normal couple. That would give you a chance to walk over to one side of the room. When I came in, if Faidi or Erica are there, we'd have them in a crossfire."

Sarah knew the idea was a good one. She turned to Chuck. "Chuck, I think Casey's idea is bullshit, it's full of risk. You don't have to do this. Wait for us in the car."

Chuck could see the merits of staying in the car, but if he went in with Sarah, and they managed to get to the other side of the terminal without alarming anybody, Sarah and Casey might be safer.

He took off his bullet proof vest. Then unbuttoned his shirt. He put the vest back on. "I'll do it, ahhh, could someone help me button my shirt over this vest, my fingers don't seem to be working very well."

Sarah moved over and buttoned his shirt up, so it covered the vest. For just a moment they were the only two people standing there, every other distraction disappeared. She was trapped, she didn't want him to do this; but Casey was right, if Chuck came in with her, it would raise less suspicion.

They might save several other people from being accidentally shot, if the shit hit the fan. She kissed Chuck hard and held onto to him tightly, she did not want to lose this man, now that she'd found him.

**{}**

A/N2- Apologies, for not letting you know the reader, who guessed the name of the movie, from whence some of Sarah's dialogue came from in chapter 8. A guest review got the answer. Wvonb got the answer as did Marc V K. Answer, Notting Hill.

A/N3-Thanks to my brother, the Airline Pilot, for some of the aviation parts of the story. If I wrote it wrong, it's my fault.

A/N4-Best wishes to you all and your _'kith and kin',_ may they pass through this troubled time safely.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

A/N- Thanks for the reviews, PMs and supporting this site. Michaelfmx continued thanks for editing.

_My beloved is mine and I am his;_

-Song of Solomon 2:16

**Le Bourget Airport – Terminal 3**

Casey didn't want to split up their little ad hoc unit. The unit couldn't be in two places at once, so they went to check out Terminal 3 first.

Sarah had a firm hold on Chuck's arm to steady his nerves. He was brave to even entertain walking into what could become a shooting gallery in seconds, but he was also untrained. She knew how to deal with the surge of adrenaline and still function in a dangerous situation. Poor Chuck was doing well for a civilian. She kept talking to him softly in order to calm him. She also realized that by touching him, she herself felt more grounded.

Sarah wanted her right hand free to use her gun, which meant looping her left hand through his arm and sticking to him like glue. As they entered the terminal, Sarah quartered the space from left to right with her eyes. They made it all the way over to the right, where she and Casey had agreed she and Chuck should position themselves.

They reached the far wall and Sarah played the role of a woman who adored her fella. She did adore him, but at the moment her heightened senses were focused on looking for Erica or Faidi, or anybody who looked out of place.

One minute later, Casey came through the sliding doors. He was a study in black. His cargo pants, tactical boots, cotton shirt, beret and bullet proof vest were all mat black. Marie-Claire, their liaison connection with the DGSE, had thought of everything in order for him to look like a policeman. His vest had Sûreté nationale stenciled across it. He looked official and acted like a French Security operator, who belonged in an Airport terminal to deter terrorists.

Casey even nodded at a security team stationed near the arrival gate. They nodded back, recognizing the yellow Sûreté nationale lettering.

None of the passengers or the airport staff reacted to the tall man with a submachine gun slung across his chest, with a Beretta pistol holstered to his side.

Sarah and Casey exchanged a look. Sarah shook her head.

Nothing was amiss here, the pulse of activity in the terminal continued without missing a beat. Casey moved his head towards the sliding doors. Chuck knew what Casey wanted. 'Time to leave… and quickly'.

They regrouped in the SUV and drove to Terminal 1, five hundred meters away.

Casey looked over at Sarah. "Well, that was a dry well. Let's repeat what we did in Terminal 3." He caught Chuck's image in his rearview mirror. "How're you holding up Chuck?" Casey knew how to deal with young, inexperienced men going into battle for the first time.

Chuck was surprised because, for once, there wasn't any hint of sarcasm, just real concern in his tone, and he'd called him by his first name.

"I'm okay, this vest is itchy, I guess that's why you don't wear it directly against your skin." He shifted his position in the back seat as they approached Terminal 1.

Sarah could feel her anxiety building, not for her but for him. "Chuck, it's okay if you want to wait in the car, I can handle this." Casey grunted his displeasure at her comment to Chuck. They needed the Nerd to reduce the risk to themselves and other, innocent bystanders.

Chuck cleared his throat, his mouth felt dry, he was afraid. "Nope, I'm going in with you."

**{}**

**Terminal 1**

This terminal had a different footprint from Terminal 3. It had two levels, which meant they had to adapt their approach. Things were now more complex. If Erica and Faidi were in the terminal, they might be on separate levels. Or, if they were together, they might have other cell members with them. If that was the case, Sarah and Casey would have to react to the situation. The worst-case scenario would be if the other cell members were inside the terminal and spread out on the two levels.

There was an even worse scenario. It would be that the primary target for Erica and Faidi was Le Bourget Airport. Sarah and Casey had quickly discussed that possibility, while Chuck listened from the backseat. Chuck piped up. "Putting a bomb in Le Bourget Airport. Is that a low probability event? By the way feel free to say yes."

Sarah turned her head and looked back at him. "Yes, it's a low probability event. Security at this airport is tight. However, some of the cell members could be carrying pistols in the waiting areas. They haven't had to go through any scanners."

**{}**

The young couple entered through the sliding doors. The blonde clung to the tall young man with her left hand. They looked like they were in the early throes of a hot romance. The couple was exceedingly clingy and touchy as they talked to each other.

A closer look at the couple would reveal that the tall woman was talking and guiding the couple's path through the terminal. It allowed her to scan all areas of the main floor in the terminal.

They ended up to the far right and waited for Casey's entrance.

Casey came in through the sliding doors. This time the submachine gun was positioned so he could be ready to aim and fire it in two seconds. He hoped like hell he'd have those two seconds.

**{}**

Faidi was wearing a brown wig and tinted glasses to hide his eyes. The light gray bespoke suit lent him an air of respectability, as did the elegant woman who embraced and kissed him as he came out of the arrivals area.

Erica Amstutz had done a marvelous job of changing her appearance. The auburn wig fit perfectly, as did the blue Dior dress, with a matching pair of stilettoes. They were an admirable couple who might've just stepped out of Vogue magazine.

They were slowly heading towards the main doors, where a black Mercedes C class sedan was waiting to whisk them away to a farmhouse, thirty kilometers, north of the Le Bourget, near Amiens.

Sarah noticed the handsome couple, quickly studied them, hesitated for a moment, then shifted her gaze to survey some of the other forty people milling around.

Chuck noticed Casey coming through the sliding doors. Looking every inch, like a French National policeman, Casey came to a stop, and looked around.

A predator senses in the blink of an eye the instance that it is being hunted.

Erica moved her head and caught sight of Casey entering the terminal. In the first three or four heartbeats, she thought him just another security policeman. However, the face, there was something about the face and the size of the man.

It finally came to her, it was the big man in the car that was rear-ended in Lisbon, right in front of the café where they were sitting.

She moved her head and whispered something to Faidi. Casey was looking away from the respectable couple, who were now in turn studying him closely.

Erica waved her hand at two men who had come in through another set of sliding doors. They were in fact two of her cell members, sent to pick her and Faidi up at Le Bourget.

It was Chuck who caught the movement of Erica's small wave. At first Chuck thought she was waving to relatives coming to pick her up. But her partner started to move away from her to create separation, which struck Chuck as odd for someone who'd just met his wife or girlfriend.

He nudged Sarah and urgently relayed to her what he'd just seen.

It took less than a second for Sarah's hackles to rise. Training and instinct now governed her actions. She raised her hand and waved at a young man who had just cleared customs. "Casey, I'm over here!"

A number of people turned their heads towards Sarah as she and Chuck took several steps towards the arrivals area, supposedly to meet the perplexed young man she was waving at.

Casey didn't look at Sarah, he knew in his gut she was warning him. He scanned to the left and saw the elegant woman and the well-dressed business man moving apart. A quick glance to his left showed the two men in dark blue suits moving towards the couple. He saw their hands reaching inside their tailored suits. Shit, two more terrorists.

Without looking down, Casey flicked a switch and selected single shots for his submachine gun and started to slide it off his chest.

It was Erica who initiated the dance of death. She reached into her purse and when her hand came out, she had a gun. It was one of the Airport Security police, near the Arrivals gate, with a keen eye who shouted gun. He was reaching for his gun when a shot rang out and he fell to the floor.

Sarah moved in front of Chuck while pulling her gun out and, in one smooth motion, shot one of the men in the dark blue suits, who'd fired the first shot.

In seconds there were multiple gun shots, people running in every direction, screaming and crying. When the last shot rang out, the silence was colossal. There were six bodies lying on the cold marble floor.

Faidi, Erica and her two cell members would never complete their mission, whatever it was. The airport security policeman was sitting up and thanking his God and his Kevlar vest, that he was still alive.

There was one other body. Chuck was lying on the floor, holding his left leg. Sarah turned around and her face went white, her heart almost stopped as she holstered her gun and knelt down beside him.

"Chuck, please move your hands, let me see." Her voice was very shaky.

Chuck was looking down at his leg. "I've been shot a thousand times in Call of Duty, it never hurts. This hurts like hell."

Sarah finally got to look at the wound. The bullet had grazed his left leg, she felt relief flooding through her, there was a little trickle of blood. The bullet had torn out some muscle and that would hurt like hell.

Before the gunfight started, she'd made sure he'd been standing directly behind her. Dammit, one of the bullets that missed her had nicked him.

"Chuck, keep your hand on this. I'll get you some help." She looked at him and then grabbed his head with her hands and kissed him. "I promise I'll make this up to you….I promise."

Where the hell was a paramedic?

**{}**

**Five Minutes Later**

Sarah and Casey stood in a tight little circle with three Airport policemen, while two paramedics were attending to Chuck.

Major John Casey, USMC, was in his element, the type of leader you wanted to be present in times of chaos. The policemen deferred to him once he identified himself and Sarah. Two of the policemen had already seen the big man, clad in black, in action. Casey killed Faidi and Erica, two double taps, center mass, in the space of five seconds.

The other policeman was a little in awe of the tall blonde, who'd killed the two men in blue suits. One of whom had shot his partner, Andre, who would be fine, thank God.

Casey, with Sarah's help, tactfully suggested that the police might want to comb the next level of the airport, to make sure there were no other cell members roaming around.

Scant minutes later, the sound of sirens flooded in from outside. The DGSE and the Sûreté nationale police poured into the terminal in strength, with guns drawn. This time the chaos that occurred was more of an administrative nature.

Casey, Sarah and Chuck were quickly sequestered into a locked room in the Customs area.

Marie-Claire Savard came into the room twenty minutes later with coffees for everyone, followed by two other men, who were obviously very high up on the French Security food chain. It turned out that one of the men was the Minister of the Interior.

The debriefing began in earnest, aided by the video tapes that recorded the entire one-minute gun battle, along with the aftermath.

An hour later, two other people entered the room. The CIA station chief for Paris, Leonard Kelly, and the American Ambassador, the Honorable Michelle Swinson, who was a close friend of the US President.

The Ambassador asked to be given an update. The Minister of the Interior succinctly told the two of them what happened and showed them the video from the CCTVs. The CIA station chief asked Sarah and Casey four or five questions.

The Interior Minister, the head of the DGSE, and the Ambassador then left the room.

The conversation between the two senior French officials and the Ambassador was brief and to the point. The Americans were thanked for their help, but for purposes of public consumption this would be labelled a French operation.

If the Americans agreed to this condition, then, as far as the French were concerned, Casey, Sarah and Chuck were never at Le Bourget Airport. The man in black and the blonde woman captured on the CCTV tapes were DGSE agents who could never be named for reasons of their own personal security.

An agreement was reached and the Ambassador shook hands with the two Frenchmen.

The Ambassador returned to the Customs room to rejoin his four fellow Americans. She turned to the four of them.

"First of all, congratulations on neutralizing this imminent and serious terrorist operation. However, if you remain here in this Airport, in fact anywhere in France, it presents us with some …. problems. No one, especially the French, expected you to be involved in the take down of Faidi."

The Ambassador sat down beside Chuck. "Mr. Bartowski, I'm very glad that you did not suffer a serious injury. I'm told you're well enough to travel."

She looked over at Sarah and then Casey. "In ten minutes, you'll be driven out to a French Air Force base, near the Somme. A Dassault Falcon 900LX, provided by the French, is being fueled and made ready for your arrival. It will take you all back to Washington, D.C., where the CIA will meet you and continue your debriefing. Any questions."

Sarah and Casey were not surprised at what was transpiring, they understood that Geopolitics, often meant that people like them must operate in the shadows. Their deeds and actions would not be spoken of in public. It was just as well, because notoriety was a curse for a spy.

Chuck was in pain and his left leg throbbed where the bullet had plowed a neat little furrow just above his quad muscle. "I have a question. Actually, a statement, then a question. I'm not great with pain, can I get something, maybe a couple of Advils?" Sarah grabbed his hand and gave him a warm smile. He hadn't gone into shock and was putting on a brave face, but she needed some alone time with him.

In ten hours, maybe tomorrow, it would all of a sudden hit Chuck, that he came close to dying, a mere matter of less than a foot. She would talk him through his feelings and help him through this. She would be there for him. In that moment, Sarah knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this was the man she wanted, to live with, to be with and to love.

Chuck wasn't finished. "What about my stuff back at the hotel, and my new laptop…I don't want to lose….."

The CIA station chief, Leonard Kelly, was usually a dour man, but this time he laughed. "Don't worry, Chuck, your and Sarah's things are being picked up by my people, as we speak. Your hotel bill has been paid in full, courtesy of the French. All of your personal stuff will be in Washington tomorrow evening. Don't worry, we're very good at cleaning up things."

Chuck grimaced due to the pain in his leg. He turned to Sarah. "Are all your vacations like this?"

**{}**

**Five Hours Later**

**Dassault Falcon 900LX -43,000ft**

Sarah moved up two rows to sit beside Casey. Casey had lowered the lights in the cabin so they could sleep. Chuck was now dead to the world, snoring softly in one of the plush leather reclining seats.

The two pain pills Sarah gave him ten minutes ago had knocked him out. Chuck most likely wouldn't wake up for the next five or so hours.

"Walker."

"Casey."

Casey wanted to sleep now that they'd just passed over Ireland, but Walker had something on her mind. He looked over at her. "Bartowski did well. He managed to master his fear and, with no training whatsoever, did what was asked of him."

Sarah was very proud of Chuck and was glad that Casey had said what she was thinking. "Well, it looks like you're not going to make that NATO meeting."

Casey nodded. "And it looks like your little love getaway with Bartowski has been scuppered."

She needed to say something to him. "Casey, I was telling you the God's honest truth. I haven't seen or talked to Chuck since we last met in Burbank, a year ago. But when you saw him at the train station in Lisbon, I promised myself that I was going to reconnect with him."

Casey gave a soft grunt. "Alright, that's the way I'm going to present it in my report when we get back to Washington, if that's okay with you?"

Sarah nodded her thanks. "Okay, I'll let you grab some shuteye…..and thanks." She paused before getting out of the seat to return to Chuck. "I love him Casey." Then she left.

Casey, smiled to himself. He knew there was a strong connection between the two of them. He liked it when his instincts were proved right.

Sarah grabbed two soft wool blankets and a pillow. She raised the armrest so she could snuggle close to him. She placed the pillow to support her back, covered him with a blanket, then herself and nestled in beside him. Two minutes later she was asleep.

**{}**

**Two Days Later- Early Morning**

**Washington D.C.- 2660 Connecticut Avenue NW**

Sarah Walker's one-bedroom apartment in Washington was a study in neutral colors. There was a clinical feel when you looked around. There was a single couch, one chair and a small kitchen table. It would be a kindness to say the place looked lived in, rather one might say it looked like someone lived here occasionally.

The empty refrigerator had one item in it. A box of Arm& Hammer baking soda to deal with any food smell that dared to exist. Unlikely, since the fridge was completely empty.

She crossed the hall from the bathroom to her bedroom. As she entered into the room, Chuck was awake and sitting up in bed. He was smiling at her. Her response was automatic, she beamed at him. As she made her way to rejoin him back in bed, the memories of yesterday at Langley resurfaced.

**{}**

_They landed in Washington at 1am and, thankfully, the CIA deferred the debriefing until the morning. The deferral of the briefing wasn't that the powers that be were showing empathy for the late hour. Rather, the Deputy Director and Director Gayle Finny decided they didn't need to lose any sleep over this particular affair. Tomorrow morning would be soon enough._

_The three of them were whisked away from Dulles Airport to a Hampton's Inn to sleep for six hours._

_Casey, Sarah and Chuck barely managed a quick shower and a hurried breakfast at the Inn before they were picked up and taken directly to Langley._

_Sarah and Casey knew the drill and were prepared for what was to come. First there would be the one-on-one interviews with the Deputy Director in charge of Europe and two of his senior associates. Next, they would meet as a group with the Deputy Director. The same questions would be asked in several different ways. There would be a long interval while the CIA collated the information and compared it to what they already knew._

_Finally, the three of them would meet with the Director, Gayle Finny. Then, they would find out if they were to be praised or censured for their actions in Paris and at Le Bourget Airport._

_Sarah and Casey, over breakfast at the Hampton Inn, had quickly told Chuck what to expect so he wouldn't be too disoriented and overwhelmed by the process._

_{}_

_Chuck found the waiting alone in a locked room to be the most difficult aspect to handle during his sudden introduction to the ways of the CIA. He was grateful that Casey and Sarah had somewhat prepared him and told him what to expect. Question after question had been directed his way. He answered them the best he could, it was difficult because he couldn't read the reaction of the questioners to his answers, they were cyphers. Finally, he was brought to this room._

_He'd developed his own meditation process to deal with anxiety and calm himself. It wasn't remotely transcendental, but it worked for him._

_He started to work on the problem, is P equal to NP, in his mind. If he could come up with a theorem, he would win a million dollars. He first encountered the problem at Stanford in his computational complexity theory class. Chuck held out little hope of solving the problem, given minds like Nash, Gödel and Neumann couldn't, but heh, a million bucks is a million bucks. If he did manage to find a solution, he'd change the face of computing._

_He closed his eyes and, as the seconds ticked by his anxiety lessened, his breathing evened out and soon he was lost in formulas, computer code and Gedankenexperiments (thought experiments)._

_When the door opened and Sarah came in, she shook her head, her Chuck had his eyes closed, was actually smiling and softly whistling to himself. "Chuck…..Chuck, time to go and see the Director, so she can praise us or give us hell."_

**_{}_**

**_Yesterday_**

_Director Gayle Finny motioned them into her spacious office with a wave of her hand. The office, this time of day, was flooded with burnt orange rays from the setting sun._

_Gayle Finny was about the same height as Sarah and her green eyes conveyed her intelligence. The woman had started as a field agent and risen up through the ranks. She was no bureaucrat who had been parachuted into the position._

_She sat down and opened a file marked confidential. They waited as she spent three minutes reading the top page, then slowly lifted up her head, took her reading glasses off and threw them on top of her desk._

_"Let me summarize what has happened in the last twelve or so hours. The French press, and indeed the World Press, are telling the same story. The story is about how brave French Security forces killed four terrorists at Le Bourget Airport." She paused to look each of them in the eye. Casey and Sarah gave nothing away, they were inscrutable._

_When the Director looked at Chuck, he smiled at her. He was pleasantly surprised when she smiled right back at him. She then addressed them all._

_"The French are happy with how things turned out; The President is pleased because President Sarkozy called him and thanked him for our behind the scenes help in the affair." She paused once again and with her right hand drummed her fingers on the desk, for several seconds._

_"Agent Walker, Agent Casey, by taking an untrained consultant into that Terminal, you risked his life and, I might add, the entire operation." She looked at Chuck, who turned his head and looked at Sarah. Sarah looked straight ahead._

_The Director wasn't just a desk jockey with no idea what it was like to be out there, operating with no safety net. "The book and your training say you should have waited, you know that and I know that._

_"However, given the number of deaths and havoc that Faidi and Erica Amstutz could've wreaked, if we let them get out of that Airport, it is my judgement that the risks you took were justified." She stood up and walked around the desk._

_Casey stood up, followed by Sarah and lastly, Chuck._

_The Director shook their hands, when she came to Chuck she held onto his hand. "Mr. Bartowski, you did well. Let me ask you, how good a hacker are you really?" Sarah tensed up inside but gave no other reaction to the question._

_Chuck mumbled, "Better than most, but I wouldn't call myself elite, your guys are out of my league."_

_Gayle Finny finally let his hand go. "Hmmm, Brett Cousins thinks your very good. Anyway, well done. A cheque will soon be in the mail for your consulting services." She looked down at the leg that had been nicked by the bullet. "And you'll have a little souvenir of your time with us. I hope it's healing nicely."_

_As they were walking out of her office, Gayle Finny's voice rang out. "Agent Walker, one more thing."_

_Sarah stopped dead in her tracks. She thought to herself, 'What now?'_

_The Director managed another small smile. "You're still on leave, see you back here in two and a half weeks. By the way, don't go back to France until things settle down."_

**_{}_**

**Present**

Sarah slipped into the bed beside Chuck and gave him a heart stopping, passionate kiss. When they came up for air, Chuck croaked out his question. "So, we can't go back to France. Perhaps all of Europe isn't such a good idea at the moment. Your face is probably plastered on every Post Office in the European Union."

She gave him a gentle thump on his chest with the palm of her hand. "Nonsense! I work in the shadows. Only the DGSE will know my identity."

Chuck laughed. "Perhaps, but when you do want to be seen, you literally stop traffic."

Sarah had plans for them, dammit she was still on vacation. "Chuck, have you ever been to Bar Harbor? I know about an Inn up there that'll give us a chance to talk. There's a lot you don't know about me. Some of it will be tough for me to tell you about. Some of it will be hard for you to hear."

Chuck could feel her defenses going up, so whatever she wanted to tell him was important. "Nope, I've never been to Maine. Hey, it's near the Ocean, so that sounds great to me. I don't have to be back in Burbank for another four days."

Sarah gave him a serious look. "Speaking of things we need to talk about, Mr. Piranha, you conned me. I can't believe it. If my father ever heard how completely you bamboozled me, he'd be pissed. Not to mention what the CIA might think of their best agent being flimflammed, by a Nerd no less."

Chuck reacted to her mention of the CIA. "Sarah, please….. they can't ever know…..If they…"

She put her hand on his cheek, the warmth instantly comforting him. "They won't ever know, that's our secret Chuck. By the way, I have a few secrets of my own."

**{}**

**A/N2**-The P versus NP problem is a major unsolved problem in computer science. It asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly verified can also be solved quickly. I'm still trying to get my head around this one, the more I read about P versus NP, the humbler I become.

**A/N3**-A hallmark of Albert Einstein's career was his use of visualized thought experiments (German: Gedankenexperiment, as a fundamental tool for understanding physical issues and for elucidating his concepts to others.

**A/N4**\- To you and your family, my hope and prayer, is we will all see each other on the other side of the Pandemic.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

**A/N**\- We are near the end of this story. I will follow up this chapter with an epilogue. Thanks for reading, reviews and PMs. Thanks to michaelfmx for your great beta work.

_"We have to live without sympathy, don't we? That's impossible of course. We act it to one another, all this hardness; but we aren't like that really, I mean...one can't be out in the cold all the time; one has to come in from the cold...d'you see what I mean?"_

_― John le Carré, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold_

**Bar Harbor- August 2, 2009 -Sunrise**

The Italian expresso machine hissed at him. Maybe it was possessed?

All Chuck wanted from this infernal machine was his morning cup of coffee. Thankfully, this hideously expensive, chrome-laden machine was fully automated. Finally, the life restoring elixir poured through the nozzle and into his mug.

The house they were staying in was located on a hill and looked out onto Frenchman's Bay. The turn of the century red brick house was situated less than two miles north of Bar Harbor. The French doors off the kitchen led to a newly stained cedar deck that gave Chuck a spectacular view out over the bay. The sun was emerging over the headland as he settled into a comfortable deck chair.

It would be another spectacular summer day, with the temperature hovering in the mid-eighties.

Chuck had a lot on his mind. He had a unique souvenir from his first vacation with Sarah Walker, a bullet wound. To be fair, it was more of a nick than a wound, but if he was in the army, he'd be eligible for a purple heart. Last night, Sarah had helped him change the bandage and gently apply antibiotic cream on this reminder of having been at Le Bourget Airport.

Sarah's idea to book a room at the Bar Harbor Inn had been a hopeless affair. The Inn was fully booked for the rest of August. Fortunately, Sarah's friend Carina reached out to a DEA contact in Maine and told them this house had recently been seized. The former owner thought the good life, fueled by his drug dealing, would never end. It did. The house was available for the next week.

Sarah shared how Carina had made one condition for her to reach out and secure the property for their mini-vacation. Once they were back on the West Coast, Sarah had to introduce Chuck to Carina. Apparently, Sarah had reluctantly agreed to the condition.

Chuck reflected on their first serious talk, yesterday.

Sarah Walker, his new girlfriend, had nervously revealed to him that when they first met in Burbank, she'd been in a relationship with Bryce Larkin. The news had hit him hard. It fully dawned on him that she had been playing him, he was a 'mark' to her, a job. In order to gain his trust, she'd pretended to be interested in him, while sneaking off to Cabo for four days and sleeping with Bryce 'bloody' Larkin. He couldn't hide the anger; it was there in his eyes for her to see.

As she shared this nauseating piece of news with him, her voice grew smaller, shrank to almost a whisper. Her tone was laced with regret and tinged with fear that his reaction would end their time together.

He wasn't a saint but thank goodness, instead of saying something to her that he might forever regret, he walked out of the room. She hadn't followed him.

Thirty minutes later, after a walk outside, he came back into the bedroom. She was sitting on the edge of the bed. Sarah Walker didn't strike him as a crier but he did notice that her eyes were moist. He gingerly sat down beside her.

Sarah slowly reached across with her hand to touch his. She held her breath hoping that he wouldn't withdraw his hand and reject her touch. He didn't, instead he glanced down to look at her hand on his, then looked up into her eyes. His brown eyes were full of warmth, there was no hardness or anger.

Sarah looked deeply into his eyes, wondering what he was about to say. "Sarah, we can spend a lot of time sifting through the dry, dead bones of our past and try to assign blame. We can try to get our pound of flesh, if we feel wronged. I don't think that's a good idea. Or, we can take a different path, we can make a commitment, here, right now, to trust each other…so we can have a chance at a future together. Let's start building that trust with each other, today."

He remembered the relief that sprang up in her eyes and the weight that lifted from his chest and shoulders. They'd kissed and then simply held each other for a long time, feeling the other person's heart beat and their warmth.

Later that night, their love making had been slow, deliberate, as they explored and discovered each other. The most intimate feelings that he could ever remember washed over him during their love making. He'd known, without either of them speaking the words, that an unspoken oath, an unsaid commitment and a silent pledge, was embodied in this single act of intimacy.

The French doors slid open quietly, he looked up as Sarah emerged with a mug of steaming coffee. The rays of the rising sun bathed her white nightie in soft morning light, her blonde hair turned golden and her blue eyes were iridescent as she greeted him. "Good morning."

Chuck was happy he managed to keep his mouth from hanging open. He marveled that this beautiful woman wanted him as much as he wanted her. He moved the other deckchair so she could sit beside him. "How'd you sleep?"

The smile told him all he needed to know. She reached out with her free hand and caressed his hand.

"Chuck, today's a new day for me, for us. I have some other tough things to share, but not today. Today, I want to go into town and be a normal woman walking around with her guy, okay."

He nodded; it was a great idea. He had some secrets of his own to share. She was patiently waiting for him to tell her a lot more about him being the Piranha.

**{}**

**Acadia National Park, Maine**

**Near Smuggler's Den**

**Next Day- 7pm**

It had been Sarah's idea to rent the two sea Kayak's. What she was about to share with her new boyfriend was not only classified, it was dangerous to speak about. The spy inside her counselled silence. 'He doesn't need to know this about you, he won't understand.' It was hard for her to ignore that inner voice because, for a long time, it had kept her alive. This evening she chose to ignore the spy voice, another inner voice was gaining strength, she would listen to it.

Chuck somehow managed to tuck his six foot plus frame, with his long legs, into the sea going Kayak. At first, the craft seemed awfully unstable. However, once he got used to it, his confidence grew.

The Sound they were paddling through, led directly to the Atlantic Ocean. This evening it was glassy smooth, as they quietly glided up and then over the gentle Atlantic swells.

Chuck looked down and wondered how many fathoms separated them from the ocean floor.

He shook his head because his new girlfriend had hidden depths he was just starting to plumb. Chuck knew that this evening's trip was a set up for another of her serious talks. They were in the center of the Sound, there was no one near them to overhear their conversation.

Sarah had been on edge for the last two hours as she rehearsed in her mind, over and over, what she needed to say to Chuck about her work with the CIA. Not all of her work. No one could distill eight years of their life into two or three hours. The vast majority of what she'd done was classified secret and would remain that way. He didn't need to know any of it.

If they had any chance of building a future, as a couple, there was however, one thing he needed to know. Chuck had seen her kill two terrorists at Le Bourget Airport in less than thirty seconds, but he didn't know that she was truly a 'gifted' killer.

She positioned her kayak to be right beside him on his left. "Chuck, what I'm about to tell you gives me no pleasure, but you do need to hear it. I spent two years of my life with the CIA as Langston Graham's enforcer."

Chuck stopped paddling and looked over at her. "Enforcer, like someone who works for the Gambino Family? You're a hit woman!?" She'd totally surprised him.

Sarah looked up in order to make eye contact with him. "It's called the President's Third Option. When there's a situation, a potential crisis or a terrorist threat to the US, the President can sometimes use Diplomacy and economic sanctions, he might even be able to use the US Military. However, if both those options won't work or don't make sense, given the situation, he will sometimes call on the CIA to use his Third option.

"All the Presidents going back to Harry Truman have made use of this option."

Chuck had trouble swallowing. He was trying to marry up the image of this beautiful woman, who he was madly in love with, also being a cold-blooded assassin. "You're telling me the President of the United States calls you up on the phone and orders you to go out and just 'whack' someone?"

Sarah's mouth felt dry and she felt mild nausea take over her stomach. "Yes and no. I took my orders from the Director of the CIA for what was called sanctioned actions against enemies of the United States. The targets were selected by the Intelligence community. The killings came under what was called Executive Action Directives."

Chuck started paddling because he needed time to think. Sarah hesitated for only a moment before she started paddling and matched his pace, stroke for stroke. Five minutes later, he stopped paddling. She was right beside him and those blue eyes he loved so much were full of worry. "Did you volunteer to become an assassin?"

It was an important question for him to ask. He was floundering with this newest revelation. Did she like killing people? How do people who kill in cold blood live their lives; how do they relate to other human beings?

"No, I didn't volunteer!" She was a little bit angry, and frustrated with having to explain herself. She needed to be careful with her tone. "Chuck, I was carefully groomed by my supposed mentor from the age of seventeen. And yes, what he did was illegal and manipulative and cunning. Nonetheless, little by little, I was slowly shaped by his praise, his rebukes and his rewards. I was carefully led to take up the role of Langston Graham's enforcer."

Chuck reached out and grabbed the side of her kayak so he could see her face better. "When Graham died in that explosion…."

She anticipated his question. "My enforcer work ended when Langston Graham died. That part of my life is now over. Chuck, I'm not trying to justify what I did as an enforcer to you. The people I killed were monsters, who operated outside of the rule of law. Killing them saved many innocent lives."

She wanted to push his kayak away and be by herself. This was too hard, to open up, to confess. Sarah Walker had served her country, the best she knew how. Did it cost her to do the wet work? Of course it did. Why then are you telling him about this?

Because, if he ever somehow found this out on his own, he might never forgive her. "Chuck, you need to know the darkest part of my life….. if we're ever going to have a …."

It was Chuck's turn to interrupt her. "Sarah, I know you and yet, I don't know you."

He was struggling to find the right words. "Let me start over. I know here." He touched his heart. "I know that you have an amazing capacity to love me and to be loved." He dearly wished at this moment he could reach out and touch her. "I have faith that you're a good person. In spite of what they've done to you or how they've manipulated you. In spite of what you've done in the past."

He smiled at her. "I had no idea when I used that 'dry, dead bones in our past' comment just how appropriate it was. Let's head back to the beach and return these kayaks."

Sarah nodded her assent and started paddling back to the beach. They paddled beside each other, matching stroke for stroke. She glanced over at him several times.

Her instincts about this man had been correct. Chuck Bartowski was built to run a marathon. He would stay by her side, every step of the way, no matter how hard that journey became. It was up to her now to let Chuck in.

Sarah now had to make a choice to do the hardest thing she'd ever done. Chuck Bartowski had her heart, now he needed her complete trust. No more holding back. When was the last time she'd made herself so vulnerable to another human being, other than her mom or dad?

Chuck looked over at her as she dipped the paddle into the water in a strong constant rhythm. Sarah Walker, his girlfriend, the love of his life, was adorable and incredibly lethal. He was pretty sure that wasn't a combination guys ticked on the latest dating apps. He wondered what kind of algorithm might find someone just like her in a huge database of young women. Interesting.

**{}**

**Later That Same Evening**

A steady breeze coming off of Frenchman's Bay kept the mosquitoes away. They sat beside each other out on the deck, savoring a snifter of Armagnac and holding onto each other's hand.

Chuck had turned out all the lights in the kitchen so they could see the stars better. He was disappointed that it was far too early in the year to see Sirius, but he pointed out the summer triangle of Altair, Deneb and Vega to Sarah.

She smiled at him. "Chuck, there've actually been a couple of times I've used the summer triangle to help me navigate my way out of trouble."

He sat up a little straighter. "Really, care to share?"

She shook her head no. "Maybe another time. I think it's time I asked you some questions. For instance, is it true you're no longer working at the Buy More?"

"Yes, I left Big Mike's establishment, about ten months ago. I'm involved with a super small startup." He squeezed her hand. "You always told me to leave the Buy More."

She nodded. "Your talents were being wasted. That place was like an albatross hanging around your neck." She gave him a gentle tug on his hand. "Come on, tell me more."

"Well, Devon has a friend named Angar from the hospital. He came over one evening, for one of Ellie's spectacular dinners. Angar was a newly appointed radiologist at Westside Medical Center.

"After we'd had a couple of beers, Angar was complaining about how laborious it was to correctly interpret the digital x-rays. He also said, that sometimes radiologist would come up with different interpretations, especially in early onset cancers.

"My ears perked up when Angar mentioned a number of research initiatives were underway using algorithms to assist radiologists and increase the accuracy of their diagnoses. The goal of using my algorithms was to reduce the number of false positive and false negative diagnoses."

He looked over at her. "Am I boring you?"

She was actually very interested; the excitement in his voice came across loud and clear. "Come on, don't stop."

"Right, anyway, Devon, Angar and I started to meet twice a week to explore a way to reduce the incidents of false negative diagnoses in half by using algorithms. It was Devon's dad, Woody who, when he heard about our ideas, told us about private venture capital.

"The long and short of it is I now own 13% of a startup company called GAMUTS. Devon, his dad and Angar all have a 13% share and the private investors, who put in $10M, own the rest the company, which is 48%."

Sarah was pleasantly surprised and happy for him. "Why Chuck, you're an entrepreneur. Do you own a Porsche?"

He laughed. "I work from home and borrow Ellie's car or use my bike. Apparently, a lot of startups burn through the cash quickly and have nothing to show for their efforts. When I get back to Burbank, I'm running my third set of algorithms against a massive database of digital radiological datasets. We already know the initial diagnoses and the actual results from biopsies. We're going to see if my algorithms can do the job more accurately."

Sarah finished her Armagnac, put the snifter down, stood up and stretched. In a decent southern accent, she said, "Chuck Bartowski, I do declare, all this talk about algorithms, my, my, you certainly know how to turn a girl's head and get her heart hammering in her chest." She held out her hand. "Come to bed sir and tell me more about these algorithms."

**{}**

**August 5, 2009**

**JetBlue 487 BOS to LAX, 34,000ft**

"Chuck, after we land at LAX, I'll book a room at Maison23." Sarah was nervous about returning to Burbank. Chuck's sister was still owed an explanation, hell, maybe even a confession and penance. She wondered if forgiveness was a common trait with the Bartowskis.

"Nonsense, you'll stay at my place in Echo Park." Chuck stared at her, confused about why she wouldn't stay with him.

"Until I've sorted out things with Ellie, I don't think it's a good idea to be sleeping under her roof." Sarah gently touched his cheek with her finger.

Surprise raced across his brown eyes. "I don't live with Ellie and Devon."

"But you said you still live in Echo Park?"

He now understood her confusion. "I live at Madelaine's condominium. A month after Madelaine died, her lawyer, Mr. O'Neil reached out to me. He asked, if I wanted to rent Madelaine's place, at a very favorable rent, at least until the estate was settled."

She nodded her understanding. "Well, in that case, looks like you have a new roommate." She was hesitant about the next bit of the conversation. "Have you told Ellie about us?"

He nodded. "I told her I'd met you in Portugal and we'd reconnected."

"What was her reaction?"

"Surprise, and concern for me to be careful. She told me not to let my heart get broken again." Chuck grabbed her hand to reassure her that he wasn't worried at all about her breaking his heart, again.

"Chuck, think of me like your shadow. No, that doesn't quite capture what I'm trying to say. How about, something biblical, 'whither thou goest, I goest'." She quickly leaned over and kissed him.

When the kiss finished, she added, "I need some alone time with Ellie to convince her that she can trust me."

**{}**

**August 6, 2009 -9am**

**Ellie and Devon's Apartment**

Sarah paused before knocking on the door, taking a couple of calming breaths. She felt naked without a gun or her knives, especially when she felt a sense of danger. She was willingly placing herself in harm's way. Of course, it was nonsense to think, for a moment, that Ellie Bartowski presented any physical danger to Sarah.

The stakes were never higher for Sarah and her relationship with Chuck, she needed to build some sort of rapport with Ellie. The dynamic between Chuck and his sister went far beyond a normal sibling connection. Ellie was not quite a mother and more than a sister to him. Would Chuck choose her over Ellie? Sarah thought he would, but she didn't want to go down that road.

Chuck and Ellie had chatted briefly last night while she unpacked. He wanted to prepare the way for Sarah, maybe help her cause before she went one on one with his sister.

When Chuck had returned after a forty-minute chat with his sister, he was mercilessly grilled by Sarah. What did Ellie say? What did you say? When you left Ellie's, was she pissed, or was she somewhat mollified? What was Ellie's body language like?

After thirty minutes worth of Sarah's interrogation, Chuck waved his arms in the air and said, "No more questions, you know everything that was said. Listen, it's going to be okay. I made it clear to Ellie that you love me as much as I love you."

Before Sarah could knock on the door, it opened. "Morning Sarah, come on in. Remind me how you take your coffee."

The first five minutes was all politeness. Ellie threw softball questions at Sarah, about their meeting in Lisbon and what they did in Paris. Sarah was wondering whether not telling someone everything was the same as lying? She edited her answers but steeled herself for the end of the 'polite' period with Ellie.

After Ellie poured each of them a second cup of coffee, she fixed Sarah with her hazel eyes. "Sarah, when you left the first time, it was hard on Chuck. He didn't tell me much about why you left. He did share with me, after some significant prodding, that your work and lifestyle were incompatible with continuing the relationship."

Sarah nodded, that was close to what she'd said to Chuck when she left.

Ellie sipped her coffee and studied Sarah. "My brother's deeply in love with you. What he felt for Jill doesn't even merit mentioning, compared to what I'm seeing now. At this moment, you hold his heart in your hands."

Sarah felt the blush on her neck and she fought not to gulp.

Ellie leaned forward. Her tone was serious. "If you're not all in, if you like Chuck, but aren't truly in love with him. Let's talk about how you and I can end this and not leave my brother a wrecked man for the rest of his life."

Sarah blinked several times. She started to speak two or three times and paused. "Ellie….you don't really know me that well. I hope that will change quickly, going forward."

She took a deep breath. "I'm all in with your brother. I've never felt this way about a man. Chuck's happiness is more important to me than my own. I know you feel very protective towards Chuck.

"So, do I. If I had to, I would lay my life down for him." Sarah's eyes grew moist and tears pooled at the bottom of her eyes. She used her sleeve to quickly wipe away the tears.

Ellie sat back on her stool; relief flooded through her body. It was true, she didn't really know this stunningly beautiful woman, but she could spot a woman who was deeply in love. Ellie was however, wondering about Sarah's comment, 'she'd lay down her life for Chuck'. It struck her as a little bit extreme.

"Chuck leads a pretty simple existence; I doubt you'll have to lay down your life for him. But I like the idea that you want to protect him." Ellie reached across and touched Sarah's arm. "Well, in that case, you and Chuck can join Devon and me for dinner tonight."

Sarah was elated that she'd convinced Ellie about her feelings for Chuck. Now she had to deal with the lies, the falsehoods, and share with Ellie who she really was. Not here. Sarah was ninety per cent certain that the CIA had cleared away all the bugs and video surveillance. To make certain that this next bit of her conversation with Ellie was absolutely confidential, they needed to go elsewhere.

"Ellie, there is something else I need to share with you in strict confidence, will you take a drive with me, please." Sarah knew how strange this request was.

Ellie hesitated because this was truly an odd request. "Uhhh….okay but I need to be back here in three hours, will that work?"

Sarah nodded and smiled at Ellie. "I promise you'll be back in three hours."

**{}**

**Two Hours Later**

**Griffith Park**

Ellie Bartowski had just finished the most intense, and utterly surprising, two hours of her young life. Chuck's girlfriend had freely confessed to being a spy for the CIA.

Angry words had been exchanged between the two of them while they sat in Sarah's Porsche.

As a doctor, Ellie held a tight rein on her emotions, most of the time. However, when she let go, she didn't hold back. The very idea that the CIA had been spying on her brother was deeply troubling. The fact that the CIA planted listening devices in her house and the idea of Sarah using her beauty to get close to Chuck made her furious

"Are you telling me the CIA sent you into our lives to seduce my brother?" Ellie directed her anger at Sarah. She demanded for Sarah to somehow justify her actions. Sarah didn't even try, she agreed with Ellie, what she done initially was a gross betrayal of Ellie's trust and Chuck's.

Eventually Ellie stopped peppering Sarah with questions, that she never gave Sarah a chance to answer. After twenty minutes of Ellie bluntly speaking her mind, she paused and took several breaths. She was now ready to listen.

Sarah, patiently went over with Ellie, information she could remember from her spy journal, from almost two years ago.

The story was a little fragmented but Ellie quickly pieced it together. Sarah's story was about a slow thaw of her reserve and professional detachment. Sarah shared her gradual appreciation of a tall, intelligent, brown eyed man who slowly became incredibly important to her.

Ellie challenged her. "If you fell in love with him, then why didn't you stay?"

Sarah looked sad. "My job, that's all I had as my anchor in life, my job with the CIA. Also, at the time I didn't even know I was in love with Chuck. All I knew was that I looked forward to being around him. He made me feel safe and trust me that is not an easything to do. Chuck made me laugh and smile."

Ellie shook her head. "Sarah, what you're describing is someone who has fallen in love."

Sarah shrugged her shoulders. "I know that now."

Sarah had absorbed Ellie's anger, without any pushback; she apologized any number of times. What finally clinched matters was how clearly Sarah described slowly falling in love with Chuck. She'd gone into great detail and convinced Ellie of the truth of the matter.

To top things off, Sarah placed her career and possibly going to jail, squarely in Ellie's hands. Sarah shared some of what had happened in Paris and at Le Bourget Airport. Ellie knew what the press had reported about the four terrorists being killed. Ellie couldn't believe it; her brother had been at Le Bourget Airport. He'd been part of the team that had dealt with the terrorists. Her little brother was an unsung hero.

Sarah's shared secret placed a great burden on Ellie. "You can't ever talk about what I've just revealed to you. It's highly classified. The only reason I'm telling you….is…..is because I can't let our relationship be based on lies. Lies that would poison any hope of you ever trusting me. If they ever found out what I've just shared with you the CIA would fire me and possibly send me to jail."

There was a long silence that followed. Ellie needed time to process all of this. Sarah waited patiently, but after four very long minutes, she had to speak. "Well…is the invite to dinner still on the table, or should Chuck and I order in a pizza tonight?"

Ellie turned her head quickly and gawped at Sarah. The surprise in Ellie's eyes was replaced with a twinkle, she started to laugh. "Yes, the dinner invitation stands, but you'd better come over early, before Devon gets home, and make damn sure there are no remaining listening devices or hidden cameras in our apartment."

Sarah smiled with relief, touched her finger to her forehead, in a mock salute. "Absolutely, aye, aye, ma'am."

**{}**

**Next Day -6pm**

**Central Library, Los Angeles**

Chuck had timed his visit to the Piranha's secret nest with Sarah, for after most of the IT staff had gone home. Only Bob and Janice remained in the IT area, and for the next hour they'd be busy fixing some of the hundred computer desktops used by the patrons of the library.

Sarah had a visitor's badge hanging around her neck and Chuck had his volunteer's badge, as well as the IT badge hanging around his neck. They were in a small room with two computer terminals. "Sarah, make sure the door is locked."

She sat down beside him after locking the door, anxiously awaiting his promised revelation about him being the Piranha.

Chuck worked away at the keyboard for two or three minutes. A smile appeared on his face. "Okay, I won't get too technical but I've set up several VPNs and, unless I go up against GCHQ, the NSA or the CIA, no one will be able to backtrack what I'm doing to this Library."

He spent ten minutes describing how, over two years, he'd set up his hacker lair here at the Library. "So, how about we take a look at a Canadian Satellite, SCISAT." Five minutes later Sarah could see the view from the satellite cameras of the North Pole.

Chuck was really enjoying this. "How about we take a look at your apartment in Washington?" In another five minutes Sarah was looking at the camera in the lobby of her building at 2660 Connecticut Avenue NW.

Over the next forty-five minutes, Chuck travelled at will through the Internet, slipping easily behind firewalls and into databases, the DMV for California, CCTV cameras in London and two other weather Satellites.

Sarah never had any doubts that Chuck's claim to be one of the elite hackers was anything but true. "How on earth have you remained out of jail? The CIA, the NSA and God knows who else have been looking for you with a lot of our resources."

Chuck smiled. "Hold onto that question."

He meticulously closed down his VPNs, did ten minutes of cleaning up and adjusting audit logs. When he finished, the terminal was exactly like any other terminal in the IT area. "My number one rule is look, but never take; second rule, as much as possible stay away from the real BAD ASSES; third rule is, there's a twelve-year-old kid out there who is a better hacker than you, so stay humble. Oh, one more thing, a healthy touch of paranoia is good."

Sarah leaned back and gave him a wry smile. "I can't believe I was so close to catching you."

Chuck smiled. "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, not in hacking."

Sarah gave him a gentle kick on his shin. He reached down and touched it and did a fake 'ouch'.

She moved closer to him and gave him a kiss. "There that'll make it all better. Time to head back to Echo Park, you and I are taking Ellie and Devon out to dinner."

**{}**

**Next Day -1pm**

She'd been adamant that they had no personal electronics on them, except for a burner phone she had just purchased. Chuck had to take off his watch, give her his phone and stand still while she closely inspected his shoes, clothes and, indeed, his whole body with a small wand.

Chuck found out that this nifty piece of technology would detect any bugs or tracking devices. Sarah had been extremely secretive about where they were going and why.

To add to the mysterious nature of what she was up to, Sarah left her Porsche at an automotive repair shop. Paid the owner four hundred dollars to rent a well-used Volkswagen Jetta. Sarah drove for four blocks to an abandoned warehouse, opened a bag she had and pulled out two license plates and a screwdriver. Sarah then drove over and caught the I-5 heading south.

**{}**

**Outskirts of San Diego- 3pm**

Sarah was more on edge than he had ever seen her as they took the off ramp from the I-5, onto Friar's Rd.

"Chuck, there's a canvas bag on the back seat. In it you'll find two baseball caps and two sets of binoculars, please reach around and grab them."

Five minutes later, Sarah parked the car near a two-acre park with several trails. The park was blessed with several species of trees, Acacia, Cedar, Myrtle and some Sweet Shade Trees.

"Chuck, put the hat on and the binoculars around your neck. We are now birdwatchers."

His patience was just about at its limit. "Sarah….."

She jumped in, "Chuck, in about twenty minutes an older lady will appear in the backyard of that house on Estrella Avenue. She'll be with a three-year-old girl. The older lady is my mother and the little girl is my adopted sister Molly."

For the next fifteen minutes Sarah told Chuck the story of Budapest and how she'd rescued the little girl. Chuck now perfectly understood the reason for Sarah acting so secretively. Why she'd taken such painstaking precautions to make sure no one could track their movements.

They got out of the car and walked to a little hill in the park that gave them an excellent view of the backyard. Sarah's prediction came true, the older woman brought the little girl out and they played merrily in the backyard.

Sarah and Chuck pretended to be birdwatchers but the majority of the time they were looking through the binoculars at Sarah's mom, Molly and a young mixed breed dog.

Sarah laughed. "When the hell did they get a dog? Look Chuck, Molly's in seventh heaven chasing the dog, it's running after her and licking her face."

Thirty minutes later Sarah's mom and Molly went into the house. Sarah touched Chuck's arm. "Time to head back, I don't want to hang around too long or draw anyone's attention."

**{}**

Twenty minutes later they were speeding along the I-5, heading north, back to Burbank. Chuck asked his question. "How long before you feel it'll be safe for you to reconnect with them? Keeping your distance must be absolutely killing you."

Sarah felt the lump grow in her throat. She needed a second before she could respond, "Soon, now that Graham and Ryker are dead and buried, I'm almost ready. The last year I've carefully checked through a couple of trusted contacts in the agency, that no one in the CIA has been poking about asking questions or investigating the 'Budapest Affair'. Graham closed the file and buried it. Nothing has happened since he died. I'll give it another six months and then I'll take you to meet them."

Chuck slowly succumbed to the monotonous rhythms of the road and drifted off to sleep.

Sarah looked over at him as his head rested against the window.

She smiled, glad that she'd trusted him enough to share with him her most precious secret. It had been less than a fortnight since they'd reconnected in Lisbon. The emotional roller coaster she'd willingly submitted herself to hadn't gotten any less thrilling or scary. Examining her own feelings while worrying about Chuck's feelings was new. How was it that loving someone so much could be so exhilarating and at the same time so draining?

Too many questions still remained with no immediate answers. What about her job with the CIA? One of them would have to leave that which was familiar in order for them to have any chance for a future together. Also, it wasn't just about geography, it was about time spent together as a couple. Her job with the CIA wasn't governed by a clock, there was no such thing as nine to five, when you're a field agent.

Sarah still had a couple of weeks to solve some of those problems. She could hear Chuck's voice inside her head telling her to relax. 'We'll figure it out."

**{}**

**A/N2**\- Annie Jacobsen's book, 'Surprise, Kill, Vanish.' goes into great detail about the 'Third Option', including the authorization/legal trail through Congress, starting in 1947.

**A/N3**\- Yes, we will cover off the shoe-box and Madelaine's legacy in the epilogue.

**A/N4**-Marc Vun Kannon made a prescient comment on the last chapter. Sarah had to go with Chuck, or Chuck has to go with Sarah, in order for them to establish a new life. The epilogue will clear this up.


	13. Chapter 13

**Epilogue**

**A/N**\- Here we are at the end of this story. Sincere thanks to those who read, those who review and those who PMd. Merci, michaelfmx, a very busy person who graciously takes the time to edit my stories.

_"From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:_

_They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;_

_They are the books, the arts, the academes,_

_That show, contain and nourish all the world."_

_― Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, Act IV, Scene III_

**Sunset Blvd, LA**

**Law Offices of Bartsch & O' Neill - August 10, 2009**

Shane O'Neill's corner office was spacious and tastefully decorated with a few personal touches. Sarah was relieved the office wasn't paneled in dark oak with a stuffy looking chair and leather couch. Rather, it was filled with the morning light reflecting off the pastel colored walls. On Mr. O'Neill's desk there was a small paperweight with the inscription, 'If you are going through hell, keep going.' Sarah smiled to herself, she recognized the quote, it was a Churchillian saying.

Mr. O'Neill had already dealt with the American Cancer Society and sent them an initial distribution from Madelaine's estate.

He would now meet with Ellie, Devon and Chuck, the designated beneficiaries. Chuck had informed Mr. O'Neill that he wished his girlfriend to also attend the reading.

Sarah and Ellie had agreed that, out of respect for Madelaine, they would wear black dresses to the reading of the will.

A smile appeared on Sarah's face as she remembered dressing this morning. She'd finished her makeup and was putting on the dress. She'd finished zipping up the black dress and was checking herself in the mirror, when she caught Chuck's reflection, looking at her.

Chuck didn't think she'd caught his admiring glance, nor did he realize Sarah had seen the desire spring up in his eyes. The thought made her smile. 'So, you like me in a black dress?'

She quickly pivoted around. "What do you think Chuck?" She'd been correct because Chuck had gulped and blushed. He then stumbled on his response. "Aaah…Amaaazing, …really great."

Chuck had been standing in the middle of their bedroom, still in his briefs and socks with his white shirt unbuttoned. She was only going to give him a quick kiss, alas, one thing led to the other and they ended up keeping Devon and Ellie waiting for fifteen minutes.

On the drive down to the lawyer's office, Sarah had leaned over and whispered to Chuck in the backseat of Ellie and Devon's Subaru, "It's all your fault, what am I supposed to do when you look at me that way?"

The reading of the will was a straightforward affair and only took about ten minutes. Mr. O'Neill explained that the long hold up in settling the estate was because initially Madelaine had wanted the bulk of her estate to go to her third cousin. Sadly, the cousin had predeceased her and there were now no longer any other family members alive to inherit. It took over a year and a half to track down and confirm the details of the cousin's death.

There were pleasant surprises in store for Ellie, Devon and Chuck. The American Cancer Society would get the sizeable residual value of the estate after the specific distributions.

Ellie and Devon would each get a fixed amount of $100,000, and Chuck would have the right to purchase Madelaine's condominium in Echo Park for $200,000 under its current market value, OR, receive $100,000. He had fourteen days to make his decision.

Mr. O'Neill looked up at Chuck. "There's one more item, a codicil added to the will." He reached down and then placed a brown shoe-box on top of his desk. "Madelaine wished for Chuck to have this shoe-box and its contents. The box was sealed by Madelaine prior to her death and, as you can see, remains unopened."

**{}**

**Evening, The Same Day**

**Echo Park**

After leaving O'Neill's office, they drove back from Sunset Blvd. to Ellie and Devon's condominium. They were all still amazed that their act of kindness towards a palliative Madelaine had caused her to put them in her will.

Ellie was all smiles because she could now pay off her student loans. Devon's family had paid off his loans already, so his share would go towards their wedding and the 'let's get a house' fund.

Intense discussions ensued about what choice Chuck should make with the two options Madelaine had left him in her will.

Ellie sipped her second glass of burgundy and offered up, "Chuck, it's a no brainer, buy Madelaine's condominium. You've been renting the place for the last two years…. Sarah, you like the place…don't you?"

Sarah wasn't sure what to say and mumbled, "It is a lovely place, roomy…..but it has to be Chuck's decision, whatever he wants to do."

Devon had his arm around Ellie. "Chuckster, I think it's pretty obvious Madelaine wants you to buy her condominium. Clever, the way she set up your choices. I know what my dad would tell you. Buy the damn condominium."

Chuck shook his head. "The market value of the condominium is $785,000. Where am I going to come up with $585,000? At the moment, I have $2,489 in my bank account. My salary is too low to get any bank to approve me for a $585,000 mortgage." He did a quick calculation, "I'd need a raise in my salary of $120,000."

Devon jumped in. "Hey, you own 13% of our company, GAMUTS."

Chuck laughed. "GAMUTS is a startup, and, as you well know, all we have at the moment are expenses with no revenue coming in. Maybe, I should just take the $100,000?"

**{}**

After they imbibed a lot more wine with Ellie and Devon, and savored an ordered in Thai dinner, Sarah and Chuck bid their goodnights and walked the thirty yards to Chuck's unit. They got ready for bed quickly.

The two of them sat in bed with pillows piled up behind their backs. They stared down at the brown shoe-box resting on Chuck's knees, still sealed, unopened for two long years.

Her patience finally ran out. "Chuck, if you don't stop staring at that box and open it, I think I'm going to explode. Pleeeease!"

"I'll need a knife…..", before he could complete his sentence, Sarah produced one of her throwing knifes from under her pillow. She flipped it in the air, caught it by the blade and passed it to him handle first. "Careful, don't cut yourself."

Chuck's eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up. "You keep a knife under your pillow?"

"Habits are hard to break Chuck, open the damn box." She gestured with her right hand towards the box.

Chuck once again reflected on the fact that his girlfriend possessed some interesting and lethal talents. She was unlike any woman he'd ever known. He suspected that a lifetime might be too short a time to really figure out who Sarah Walker really was.

Chuck opened the box and gasped. "What the hell, it's a gun."

Sarah leaned over and picked up the gun, checked that the safety was on, slid back the barrel to make sure there was no bullet chambered, pressed a button and the 8-clip magazine dropped out of the handgrip. There were no bullets in the magazine or the gun. She gave him a smile, "This German gun is almost seventy years old, but Madelaine took good care of it. See the sheen of oil? I'll hang on to this."

Chuck looked in the box. "Well, here are your eight bullets." He passed them over to Sarah.

He then pulled out all the old photos and a small black leather diary. They worked slowly, going through each of the photos. The identity of the people in the photos, apart fromMadelaine, Sean and John, were unknown. Chuck looked at her, "Maybe the diary will tell us who some of these people are."

Sarah estimated that the photos spanned a fifteen-year period based on the clothes, cars and hairstyles.

She touched the photo of three uniformed individuals standing in front of a four-engine plane. When Chuck was twelve, he had bought a book about allied planes of WWII. He still had the book somewhere but he didn't need to refer to it; his eidetic memory served him well. "Hey that's a Halifax Bomber, I think it's a Handley Page."

Sarah pointed out the young, good looking woman with dark hair. The eyes gave her away, it was Madelaine Ross. She pointed out Sean and John (Jean) Simpson, the two men on either side of the young Madelaine.

Two hours later, Chuck was exhausted, they hadn't even managed to look at the diary.

Sarah could see he was fading quickly. "Chuck, can I ask you a huge favor?"

Her blue eyes mesmerized him. How the hell could he refuse her anything she asked? "Okay."

"Can I take the photos and the diary and do some research. I promise that once I'm done, I'll tell you what I find." Sarah wanted to carefully sift through the diary and check it against the photos and any archival material the CIA might have. Sarah loved solving a mystery and Madelaine's past life was just waiting for her to roll up her sleeves and dig into it.

She also wanted to shield Chuck from parts of Madelaine's spy life, noted in her diary, that he might find difficult to hear. Chuck had heard the story, as had she, from Jean Simpson of how Madelaine had killed the two guards in East Berlin, while rescuing Sean.

In spite of Jean's graphic retelling of the rescue, Chuck still believed Madelaine to be a lovely old lady. Sarah needed to look at this information first. She was positive that Madelaine, like her, had to do things as a spy, that were best forgotten.

Chuck stretched and yawned. "Deal, can we go to sleep, what time is it? Geeez, it's two in the morning."

Sarah put everything back in the box and put it down on the floor on her side of the bed.

Chuck turned the bedside table lamp off and was instantly snuggled by a warm body. He hoped he would never grow used to the lovely sensation of her blonde hair against his chest and her legs intertwined with his.

**{}**

**Fifteen Months Later**

**Echo Park, Los Angeles**

**January 9th, 2011**

_Hi my name is Chuck, and here are some things you may not know._

_I'm going to be a father in six and a half months. If my calculations are correct, based on the latest ultrasound and my research in the Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, the birth will occur in 194 days or July 21st._

_Sarah shook her head, mumbled the word, 'Nerd', and wandered back into her study, after I shared with her what my research and calculations indicated about the delivery date. That's okay, I'm sure the delivery date of our first child, with ninety-five per cent confidence will be July 21, plus or minus 2.3 days._

_A lot has happened, so please allow me to quickly bring you up to date._

_In the end, I did buy Madelaine's condominium. Nope, that's wrong, I should say Sarah and I bought it together. It was Sarah's idea. She came up with the down payment and suggested we combine our two salaries and then approach the bank._

_A shell company called, Leith Import & Exports, owned by the CIA, produced an employer's letter verifying her salary. I strongly suspect someone might've called the bank and put in a good word for us. The long and short is that we live here and are now in the process of figuring out where the nursery is going to go._

_Devon and Ellie moved to Chicago, three months ago, to take up their new careers at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. We're very happy with the folk who moved into their place. In fact, I helped move them into my sister's old place; our new neighbors are Sarah's mom, Emma, and her adopted sister, Molly._

_Emma sold her house in San Diego where she'd been living for the last fourteen years. She got a decent price for her place. Ellie and Devon did a private deal with Emma to purchase their condominium and they both saved because there was no commission._

_Sarah's over the moon that her mother will be close by to help with her first grandchild. Molly, when she's not attending junior kindergarten, spends a lot of time visiting over at our place. I think Sarah will be a good mother, even though she keeps saying she hasn't got a clue how to raise a child._

_I'm unemployed at the moment but I don't want you to worry, let me explain._

_Devon, Angar, Woody and I sold our startup company to Siemens. The algorithms that we designed and perfected worked well. They say timing is everything; we were lucky that we were four months ahead of two other startups working on similar software._

_The good news is the payment for my shares allowed Sarah and I to pay off our mortgage. My algorithms and the software we developed are selling well. I also get a royalty check each month for about $2,850. The bad news is that I need to find a new job._

_I'm exploring creating a 'White-Hat' hacker company. It's sort of like being a White Ninja, where I do good things instead of bad things. I would hack companies, with their permission, in order to help them improve their cyber security. Sarah likes the idea and thinks she could help me out with her CIA and DEA contacts. We'll see._

_Sarah worked for another seven months as a CIA field operative. The seven months were hard on both of us. I didn't want to force her to choose between her career and me, so I kept quiet. The nature of her work built in a lot of separation between us._

_When she was away, I missed her and worried if she was alright. Often it was too dangerous for her to break her cover and stay in contact with me. I'm glad to say that it was Sarah's idea to resign, her exact words were, "Chuck, it's not like it was before I met you, I miss you, I miss my mom and Molly, all the time. My heart just isn't in the game anymore."_

_I was totally surprised with what she wanted to do next._

_Sarah Walker, ex-CIA operative, kickass spy and my beautiful wife._

_Oh, sorry, I forgot to tell you we decided to get married four months ago. We both wanted to have the wedding before Ellie and Devon moved off to Chicago. Sarah and Ellie were thick as thieves planning the wedding and the reception._

_Sarah didn't want her dad to come to the wedding. She really wanted her mom and Molly to be there, so sadly she was forced to choose one over the other._

_Ellie was, of course, the matron of honor, Molly was the flower girl and Carina was a bridesmaid. (Yes, I finally got to meet the irrepressible, always fun, always flirty, slightly crazy, beautiful DEA agent.) Morgan was my best man and loved dancing with Carina at the reception. They disappeared for about thirty minutes during the reception. All, I know is that Morgan came back smiling from ear to ear._

_Sorry, I got sidetracked._

_Sarah wanted to write a book; she's now a budding author._

_Madelaine's shoe-box, the photos and the diary, touched something deep within Sarah. She spent every moment of downtime as a spy, (apparently, it's not like the movies, there is a lot of 'sit on your ass' time being bored), reading and researching Madelaine's photographs and her diary. The more she read and the more she researched Madelaine's background, the more her desire grew to write a book._

_Sarah often told me that Madelaine's story needed to be told. Madelaine had been center stage during the Normandy invasion and had a front row seat in Berlin during the Cold War as a French Intelligence Agent._

_Madelaine's diary covers her three years in Indochina; five long years in Berlin, from 1950-1955, fighting the Cold War with the East Germans and the Russians._

_As soon as Sarah left the CIA and was back in Burbank, she signed up for creative writing classes at UCLA. At first blush you might think there's no way the taciturn, slightly introverted Sarah Walker would be an author. You'd be wrong._

_Hell, it's not like she was some illiterate from a fly over town in the mid-west; she graduated from Harvard with a major in English Lit. and two minors in French and Spanish. My wife can write. I'm proud of her and, of course, she has this amazing material that she has turned into a great story._

_We talked about whether she was going to write a biography or a fictional story about Madelaine._

_I wasn't aware of this but, because she is ex-CIA, and she is writing about real events that happened in Berlin, Sarah had to submit her draft to the CIA, to get clearance to publish._

_I told Sarah this was patently ridiculous; I mean, all this stuff happened seventy years ago. Looks like I was wrong._

_Sarah sat down with me and we went over four changes she had to make because some of the items were still classified. Also, there were two assets Madelaine recruited who were still alive and needed to remain anonymous. What that means is that the book will now be a history/fictional book, with one of those watered-down paragraphs that says, 'Loosely based on the life of Madelaine Ross'._

_The story is now written, cleared by the CIA, and Sarah has a publisher._

_But hold on, now the hard work begins._

_Sarah has an editor, Emily Fuller. There's not a day that goes by without them talking on the phone or Facetime._

_Sarah has a deadline to get the work done. The book is to be published on April 2, 2011._

_On the whole, Sarah and Emily get along but sometimes I hear shouting coming from Sarah's study as she argues with Emily, about rewriting this paragraph and changing this, or adding that. Between you and me, I think Sarah is loving the back and forth._

_At the moment Sarah is bursting with energy. Ellie says that a burst of energy, along with being dog tired, is all part of being pregnant. I've also noticed some interesting changes in Sarah's libido, sorry, don't want to get sidetracked, I'll move on._

_Ellie's words to me, "Chuck, scans clearly show noticeable changes to the brains of first-time mothers. Sarah's brain is being rewired as we speak."_

_Interesting, after fifteen months of living together with a complex, intelligent, beautiful, potentially lethal and still mysterious woman, here she goes changing again. There is some hope that my efforts to understand her haven't been in vain. A number of times Sarah has spontaneously reached out and hugged me. She then, in a conspiratorial tone, whispers in my ear, "You know me better than any other person in the Universe"._

_I still spend Saturday afternoons and Thursday evenings volunteering at the Library. Sarah has warned me to be extra careful if I slip into Piranha mode. Apparently, the CIA/NSA and CGHQ, plus four or five other agencies around the world, are still looking for me._

_Prior to Sarah reestablishing contact with Emma and Molly, I did a lot of work as the Piranha to make sure there was no fallout to the Budapest Incident. Also, I carefully checked to see if there was anything stirring in Hungary._

_Molly's real name is Tedora Farkas, and because no body was found, the lawyers handling the huge estate refuse to wind it up. The money is all invested and safe and sound, of course the lawyers take 1% each year as their fee for being executors. They're in no hurry to make any changes._

_Sarah asked me to hack into the Hungarian lawyer's computer system. It was a little more difficult than I first imagined. However, once in their system, I discovered that if Molly, sorry Tedora, doesn't make a claim on the estate by the time she turns twenty-one, the entire estate will go to four charities picked out by the parents before they were killed._

_Well, I think that brings you up to date. And look here comes my beautiful wife. Hmmm, looks like I've done something wrong._

"Chuck, have you moved my gun again. It should be right behind the box of Muesli."

A perplexed look came across his face. "Yes, I put that old German gun, you hold onto, back in the drawer with your throwing knifes. You're no longer a CIA agent, why do you need a gun or knives? You do know we can't have guns in the house once our daughter's born, right?"

Patting her bump, she smiled at him. "Of course, we won't have guns lying around when our daughter arrives. Everything will be baby and toddler proof by then. "

Putting her arms around his neck she reminded him. "Speaking of potential hazards for babies and toddlers. You'll have to move all those Star War figures in your study into our storage closet. It's just too easy for a toddler to swallow them."

THE END

{}

**A/N2**\- Be safe, be well.


End file.
